A uniquely heartfelt voice
by Ralf Christensen
Translation from Danish to English by Riina Spørring Zachariassen original article: information.dk
Diamanda Galás drives tortured voices out from blues, chanson and middle eastern tradition. She is possessed by them, however with a powerful artistic temper and equilibrial technique, she also manages to tame them and to transform desperation into great art.
There is the belief, that without art, society would go mad. That art serves the masses as dreams serve the individual: As a highly necessary treatment of what happens in life. Thus art is also indispensable, if we wish to continue to be able to deal with our common reality and history behind us.
Perhaps it is a somewhat simple way to approach American-Greek Diamanda Galás, but there is something strongly pain relieving about her sophisticatedly distorted work. There is a rock hard dismissal of any bourgeois ideal of art as decoration in her work.
With this 54-year old diva, dreams in the form of nightmare reign. Every song a twisted tortured existence, which forces its way through her artistically transforming throat, before it materializes as a desperate shaped horror of beauty.
It is dark and completely quiet in the Marble Church Friday night, as we hear her clicking heels approaching. A flashlight guides her onto the podium, to the enormous piano, flown in from Germany. A single light hits her always dramatically painted face. A make-up that distorts as much as it accentuates. The tales of her many demands to the booker, her true diva eccentricities have run ahead of her, but they couldn't matter less, when her hands dig into is and her voice splits our marrow.
Galás is an equilibrist. Her mastering of the piano is without mercy, sharp, expressive, stabbing but also deeply sensitive and chilling. And then there is her song... Or rather her tapping into a world of souls. She chants. Growls. Hisses. Gargles. Slips into grand melodies of recognizable conventional beauty. Desecrates them. Opens new spaces in her body and her art, releases yet another lost soul through her throat. Several times balancing on the verge of tears. As also the audience.
We witness an attack in defense of the lost. The doomed songs of country music. The desolate souls of blues. The scolded hearts of the chansons. Songs by Jacques Brel and songs made famous by Johnny Cash, Edith Piaf, Juliette Gréco and Oum Kalsoum.
Her style is a conglomerate of genres, of jazz, blues, gypsy music, avant garde, classical, klezmer, soul, opera, middle eastern and Arabic tradition. Which detonates in fractions in terrifying song and piano playing. But it's not hybrid music, it's rather mutated, beautifully fused creatures that greet us. A width and a seamless complexity of another world. Directly and understandably raw – but also very sophisticated.
From her own republic
Diamanda Galás has always crossed boundaries, she has stood by her opinions, strongly political. There isn't too much of that between her songs at the Marble Church, even if creative journalism and the Greek tourist industry got a few slaps delivered overbearing humor.
But in her performance there is an undeniable feeling of conveying of the outcast. Previously she has violently fought the neglect of the AIDS epidemic by the catholic church, death penalty and the torture of a Turkish woman. She even wrote a tribute to Eileen Wuornos (portrayed by Charlize Theron in 'Monster'). A woman she pays tribute to for having had enough and acting after having experiencing a long line of horrors and injustices. In other words, Diamanda Galás is not for the weak. But then again, neither is life.
On this night her voice appears with a slight stirring delay, which pulls a tightly controlled echo after her words. And it only makes it even more awe-inspiring – yes it multiplies the swarms of raging birds which seem to hover over the audience, it unites the desperate characters in her songs with a sacred noblesse.
It very much feels as if Galás is possessed by the voices in her songs, but that, by force of her artistic temper, she also manages to tame the powerful emotions in long passages – but that she can also be overwhelmed by them. When a song for instance goes from the tonally tight to the emotionally distorted, if not tearful. Or when her mouth is twisted in pain so that the words can be impossible to decipher. Or when the piano is not as much a musical instrument as it is a conveyor of desperation and aggression.
Galás long ago abandoned her training in jazz and classical music to build her own republic with wide open borders and seemingly with the sky as the limit. She grew up in San Diego, California, her parents are Greek orthodox. She studied music from an early age and during the concert I asked myself, why and when her musicality took such a drastic turn? What happened inside the young Galás? Or rather, which tortured souls took home in her? What did her parents say? Her teachers? Did they try to pull her back within the limits of fine art? Did they dream of hearing her play Chopin?
No one escapes the whip
That we should experience her on this Friday evening in the center of a new form of bourgeoisie, that says more about the appearance of the creative class that of Galás artistic work. In this new bourgeoisie, crossing boundaries is part of a good night out. It is something that we pay a visit to. And in the Marble Church we mingle before the concert. The colorful attire of the creative class merges with the chalk white skin of the goth girls. Old pessimists with golden jobs, newly added dissidents with the nuclear family as their likely future are amongst each other in the expectation that art will bring us closer, guard us from insanity.
And the cosiness is not shattered but it does shiver as Galás is on the podium behind the grand piano, where she seems to search for keys that aren't there – but which she finds in her audience.
Yes, we are merely guests in the republic of this diva, however we do not escaped her nine tailed whip. And while the warm blood runs down our backs, this writer not only understands but also feels that music can be a voice for the oppressed in a way that far exceeds any common form of charity. Not as well meaning political songs, but as transmissions straight from the hell, that society and humanity and history places the marginalized in.
So when Diamanda Galás finally lets go of the keys, it feels as if something exhales, is granted peace. Albeit for a short while – until it once again awakens in this lady's uniquely heartfelt voice.
by Ralf Christensen
Translation from Danish to English by Riina Spørring Zachariassen original article: information.dk
Diamanda Galás drives tortured voices out from blues, chanson and middle eastern tradition. She is possessed by them, however with a powerful artistic temper and equilibrial technique, she also manages to tame them and to transform desperation into great art.
There is the belief, that without art, society would go mad. That art serves the masses as dreams serve the individual: As a highly necessary treatment of what happens in life. Thus art is also indispensable, if we wish to continue to be able to deal with our common reality and history behind us.
Perhaps it is a somewhat simple way to approach American-Greek Diamanda Galás, but there is something strongly pain relieving about her sophisticatedly distorted work. There is a rock hard dismissal of any bourgeois ideal of art as decoration in her work.
With this 54-year old diva, dreams in the form of nightmare reign. Every song a twisted tortured existence, which forces its way through her artistically transforming throat, before it materializes as a desperate shaped horror of beauty.
It is dark and completely quiet in the Marble Church Friday night, as we hear her clicking heels approaching. A flashlight guides her onto the podium, to the enormous piano, flown in from Germany. A single light hits her always dramatically painted face. A make-up that distorts as much as it accentuates. The tales of her many demands to the booker, her true diva eccentricities have run ahead of her, but they couldn't matter less, when her hands dig into is and her voice splits our marrow.
Galás is an equilibrist. Her mastering of the piano is without mercy, sharp, expressive, stabbing but also deeply sensitive and chilling. And then there is her song... Or rather her tapping into a world of souls. She chants. Growls. Hisses. Gargles. Slips into grand melodies of recognizable conventional beauty. Desecrates them. Opens new spaces in her body and her art, releases yet another lost soul through her throat. Several times balancing on the verge of tears. As also the audience.
We witness an attack in defense of the lost. The doomed songs of country music. The desolate souls of blues. The scolded hearts of the chansons. Songs by Jacques Brel and songs made famous by Johnny Cash, Edith Piaf, Juliette Gréco and Oum Kalsoum.
Her style is a conglomerate of genres, of jazz, blues, gypsy music, avant garde, classical, klezmer, soul, opera, middle eastern and Arabic tradition. Which detonates in fractions in terrifying song and piano playing. But it's not hybrid music, it's rather mutated, beautifully fused creatures that greet us. A width and a seamless complexity of another world. Directly and understandably raw – but also very sophisticated.
From her own republic
Diamanda Galás has always crossed boundaries, she has stood by her opinions, strongly political. There isn't too much of that between her songs at the Marble Church, even if creative journalism and the Greek tourist industry got a few slaps delivered overbearing humor.
But in her performance there is an undeniable feeling of conveying of the outcast. Previously she has violently fought the neglect of the AIDS epidemic by the catholic church, death penalty and the torture of a Turkish woman. She even wrote a tribute to Eileen Wuornos (portrayed by Charlize Theron in 'Monster'). A woman she pays tribute to for having had enough and acting after having experiencing a long line of horrors and injustices. In other words, Diamanda Galás is not for the weak. But then again, neither is life.
On this night her voice appears with a slight stirring delay, which pulls a tightly controlled echo after her words. And it only makes it even more awe-inspiring – yes it multiplies the swarms of raging birds which seem to hover over the audience, it unites the desperate characters in her songs with a sacred noblesse.
It very much feels as if Galás is possessed by the voices in her songs, but that, by force of her artistic temper, she also manages to tame the powerful emotions in long passages – but that she can also be overwhelmed by them. When a song for instance goes from the tonally tight to the emotionally distorted, if not tearful. Or when her mouth is twisted in pain so that the words can be impossible to decipher. Or when the piano is not as much a musical instrument as it is a conveyor of desperation and aggression.
Galás long ago abandoned her training in jazz and classical music to build her own republic with wide open borders and seemingly with the sky as the limit. She grew up in San Diego, California, her parents are Greek orthodox. She studied music from an early age and during the concert I asked myself, why and when her musicality took such a drastic turn? What happened inside the young Galás? Or rather, which tortured souls took home in her? What did her parents say? Her teachers? Did they try to pull her back within the limits of fine art? Did they dream of hearing her play Chopin?
No one escapes the whip
That we should experience her on this Friday evening in the center of a new form of bourgeoisie, that says more about the appearance of the creative class that of Galás artistic work. In this new bourgeoisie, crossing boundaries is part of a good night out. It is something that we pay a visit to. And in the Marble Church we mingle before the concert. The colorful attire of the creative class merges with the chalk white skin of the goth girls. Old pessimists with golden jobs, newly added dissidents with the nuclear family as their likely future are amongst each other in the expectation that art will bring us closer, guard us from insanity.
And the cosiness is not shattered but it does shiver as Galás is on the podium behind the grand piano, where she seems to search for keys that aren't there – but which she finds in her audience.
Yes, we are merely guests in the republic of this diva, however we do not escaped her nine tailed whip. And while the warm blood runs down our backs, this writer not only understands but also feels that music can be a voice for the oppressed in a way that far exceeds any common form of charity. Not as well meaning political songs, but as transmissions straight from the hell, that society and humanity and history places the marginalized in.
So when Diamanda Galás finally lets go of the keys, it feels as if something exhales, is granted peace. Albeit for a short while – until it once again awakens in this lady's uniquely heartfelt voice.