Diamanda Galas - Masque of the Red Death (1989)

This box set is in fact a repackaging of the catalogue numbers Stumm 33 and 46, “The Divine Punishment & Saint of the Pit”, and “You Must Be Certain of the Devil” respectively.
The first disk highlights Galas’ more experimental music, the second her original interpretations of traditional blues and gospel.

I do not doubt most people on board are familiar with the phenomenon Galas. Those who have never heard of her are advised to watch the Youtube clip “Saint of the Pit” first – that’s an adequate preview of what they’re going to get.

Among other things, Diamanda Galas has been called the Queen of Scream. And yes, screaming is what she frequently does. Not that she produces a young girl’s common cry of fear at seeing a hairy spider…the lady has actually made a study of getting the most out of her vocal chords; and if you think the younger Galas looked rather rotund – see her clip “Skotoseme” with John Paul Jones – that’s just because her barrel-shaped chest housed a pair of exceptionally voluminous lungs. For her purposes, she trained those lungs like an athlete would do. By the way, that same John Paul Jones, bass player of Led Zeppelin, admitted he’d been trembling like a leaf when she’d finished her one-take-only of Skotoseme….Galas knows how to inspire awe, even among hardened rockstars.

The track “Exeloyme” from this set beautifully captures Galas’ wide-ranging vocal skills. She can do everything with that amazing voice. Starting as the operatic soprano she basically is, she goes all the way down from belcanto to throwing daggers at your ears to the croakings of a disgruntled crow. All of this heavily amplified and electronically manipulated to make a massive impact. The effects of this murderous attack on one’s auditory senses are not to be underestimated; people are known to sometimes leave her concerts after ten minutes.

Why the violence, why the terror, one might ask? The performances with pig’s blood, the pictures showing the singer hanging onto a cross etc. etc? The maddening noise? Countless people all over the world have accused her of satanism. Totally ridiculous. Galas does not worship evil, on the contrary: she merely reflects the evil which is hidden, not only in religions and authorities, but in all of us. The prejudices, the ignorance, the narrow-mindedness, the ruthlessness, the eyes seeing without compassion, the reluctance to put out a helping hand, all this is what galls Galas beyond description. It is what her music is about. She does not ask, but, in the harshest terms, DEMANDS us to show compassion for those in need. For the terminally ill, the persecuted, the insane, the forgotten, the cultures senselessly swept away, the peoples trampled upon and killed.
Galas, then, truly deserves this other, more honorable nickname: she’s the Voice of the Dispossessed.

At the time the panic mongery about aids reached its peak, when hospitals hardly dared to treat hiv-positive patients, Galas, a former student of biochemistry and immunology, already knew the fears were ungrounded. She saw many of her generation who were unlucky enough to get infected become outcasts and die in dire circumstances. Aids was considered a “Divine Punishment”.

It enraged her. And she spoke up. Defended those who were left without hope when hardly anybody else dared to say a word in their favour. This set is a result of her ongoing war against prejudice and ignorance, the real Red Death in our midst. I have the utmost respect for her music and courageous personality.

tracks:

cd1:

01. Deliver Me from Mine Enemies [0:19:17.60]
02. Free Among the Dead [0:13:36.10]
03. La Treizihme Revient [0:05:03.73]
04. Exeloyme [0:07:19.37]
05. L'Heautonimoroumenos [0:06:49.50]
06. Artimis [0:05:02.20]
07. Cris D'Aveugle [0:12:16.20]

cd2:

01. Swing Low Sweet Chariot [0:02:44.63]
02. Double-Barrel Prayer [0:05:05.02]
03. Let's Not Chat About Despair [0:04:58.00]
04. Birds Of Death [0:05:19.65]
05. You Must Be Certain Of The Devil [0:04:57.30]
06. Let My People Go [0:03:21.20]
07. Malediction [0:04:19.25]
08. The Lord Is My Shepherd [0:01:31.70]

cd1

cd2