In 1990, Diamanda Galás appeared on stage in the world’s second-largest cathedral, Saint John Divine in New York, half-naked and dripping in cow’s blood. Shocked audience members walked out, while the Roman Catholic church – whose bigoted attitude towards people with Aids had incurred Galás’s wrath and inspired her theatrics – called the avant-garde performance artist, composer, singer and pianist blasphemous.
Following a decade-long break from recording, Galás is celebrating the release of two new albums: At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem, a 2016 live recording of “death songs”, and a covers album of jazz and traditional songs called All the Way. But at this show, her reputation as the high priestess of goth enshrined, she has no need for such histrionics. Her capacity to dumbfound and disturb, however, remains resolutely undiminished.
Dressed in a long, sheer-sleeved black dress, Galás looks like the ultimate alt-bride. Sitting alone at a piano, her long, graceful fingers play the jaunty melody of Jacques Brel’s Fernand while her rasping, often terrifying, mezzo-soprano vocals wring all shades of light and dark from each Gallic syllable. German and Greek are equally torn asunder on Die Stunde Kommt and O Prosfigas, respectively, as Galás brings her harrowing vision to shrieking life. Like a medium possessed by spirits, her expression and vocals continuously change: her wide eyes are suddenly hooded and suspicious, her falsetto almost mirror-shatteringly high before her voice sinks to a bruising, demonic roar. During the awe-inspiring O Death, she unleashes what sounds like protracted TV static, as she gives voice to pain, violence and terror through a prism of vengefulness.
Between songs, Galás reads her own poems, including Morphine and Shriek, which are no easier on the ear or the heart. As she scratches at a dark vein of misery, the California native contorts her voice until she sounds like a sinister, spiteful Southern belle.
Galás changes musical styles with abandon, pushing the boundaries of blues, jazz, gospel, soul and country. From the live recording comes the screeching intensity of Artemis, followed by a cover of Johnny Paycheck’s (Pardon Me) I’ve Got Someone to Kill. The wry humour and restraint of her second encore (there are three) come as a relief, in a 90-minute set that is low on levity but off the scale with intensity and uniqueness – even without the cow’s blood.
