THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Anti-siren returns, with a little sadistic relish
Rich voice exposed
... Diamanda Galas heads into the underworld.
■ MUSIC
Diamanda Galas
State Theatre, October 21
Reviewed by John Shand
Part soul singer on
hallucinogens, part witch with a
wicked sense of humour,
Diamanda Galas could find the
morose implications of a
Christmas carol.
Having left her black-swathed
fans in tortured ecstasy when
here for the 2001 Sydney Festival,
the Greek American’s new show,
Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, had a
bluesy title song she dragged off
to a dark underworld and ground
into themire, shrieking and
howling while a flashing white
light blinded us.
Dimly-lit herself, Galas sat
side-on to the audience at a
grand piano she molested with
sadistic relish, especially
punishing the lower register.
Galas is often taken too seriously,
however. The country and
western waltz of Baby’s Insane,
for instance, wasmade surreal
with flashes of yodelling and
saloon-style piano.
But My World is Empty
Without You became a suicide
note delivered with the piano
treated so it sounded like it had
been pitched froma ship, and
was crying for help as it sank. I
Put a Spell on You was a gloating,
threatening boast, with a refrain
of ‘‘I love you’’ repeated pitilessly,
before she bolted back to her
shrieking overdrive default
mechanism.
At the Dark End of the Street wasmore soulful, although it
groanedwith as much
ornamentation as a Double Bay
matron, a tendency that could
choke the emotional impact
entirely, as happened on Heaven
Have Mercy.
Infinitelymore effective was 25
Minutes to Go, the chilling
countdown to the hanging of
condemned prisoner, while the
wailing soprano extensions on
Blind Lemon Jefferson’s One Kind
Favour worked brilliantly, staining
the blues a midnight navy.
The richness of Galas’s voice
was exposed on the closing
Gloomy Sunday, an unsurprising
paradox for a woman who deals
in desolation as lightly as state
governments sign tunnel
contracts. The ultimate anti-siren,
she could have saved Odysseus
some rope burns had she
occupied thatmythical isle he
sailed past.
The Christian right would
probably claimher as proof of
societal degeneration. In fact,
Galas’s excesses are merely a
reaction tomass art degenerating
into predictability.