Virtually everything that’s ever been written about postapocalyptic Greek-American mourning diva Diamanda Galás focuses first and foremost on her voice—and rightly so, given that it’s a once-in-a-generation instrument that’s only grown darker and wilder since her electrifying 1982 debut, The Litanies of Satan. There’s also a lot to say about her prowess as a composer (no one will ever write better ritualistic song cycles lamenting the AIDS epidemic or the Armenian genocide) and about her powers as an interpreter, by which she disassembles standards and puts them back together again (take for example her two new albums, All the Way and At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem).…
Virtually everything that’s ever been written about postapocalyptic Greek-American mourning diva Diamanda Galás focuses first and foremost on her voice—and rightly so, given that it’s a once-in-a-generation instrument that’s only grown darker and wilder since her electrifying 1982 debut, The Litanies of Satan. There’s also a lot to say about her prowess as a composer (no one will ever write better ritualistic song cycles lamenting the AIDS epidemic or the Armenian genocide) and about her powers as an interpreter, by which she disassembles standards and puts them back together again (take for example her two new albums, All the Way and At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem).…