Defixiones, Will and Testament
La Serpenta Canta
Two Double Album Releases - Out 24th November 2003
Plus Rare Live Dates in London and Glasgow - October/November
Diamanda Galás releases two double albums on 24th November, her first releases since 1998's Malediction and Prayer. For both of these albums, Galás continues her forensic acts of identifying long buried hurts.
One, Defixiones, Will And Testament,
investigates the little known Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides
carried out by Turkey between 1914 and 1923, with the singer
articulating the anger and sorrow of the dispossessed through the words
of exiled poets and writers alongside her own texts. La Serpenta Canta
(aka The Serpent Sings) is a song recital recruiting blues, R&B,
Motown, southern soul, Country & Western and her own "Baby's
Insane" (from This Sporting Life, her duo album with John Paul Jones)
in Galás's ongoing campaign against forgetting. Between the two albums,
Galás covers a whole lotta dying ground in a babel of languages
(Defixiones alone sets poems by Belgian writer Henri Michaux,
Romanian-Jewish Paul Celan, Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini,
French symbolist Gérard Nerval, Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, Armenian
Siamanto, Syrian Adonis, Assyrian poet-martyr Dr Freidoun Bet-Oraham
and more) and traditions spanning Eastern Orthodox liturgy, American
roots and the rembetika songs of Greece and Asia Minor.
Both sets are sung by Galás accompanying herself on piano, tape and a
minimum of electronics, though you'd be forgiven for thinking that
there are more of her out there coming at you from all sides, as her
formidable voice rises to its full power and rattles the walls with its
reverberating echoes. "My voice," she said in 1988, "was given to me as
an instrument of inspiration for my friends, and a tool of torture and
destruction to my enemies. An instrument of truth." With its
much-touted three and a half octave range, Galás's voice is the most
powerful weapon in her self-designed musical armoury.
Diamanda Galás will perform Defixiones, Will And Testament
on Friday 17th October at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of
their Mind Your Head 2003 - Exploring new meanings in Sacred Music
series.
A second date has been announced on Sunday 2nd November at Glasgow's
Royal Concert Hall as part of the city's Glasgay Festival. Frenzy:
Concert For Aileen Wuornos is dedicated to Wuornos, who was executed on
death row last year. The performance will include new arrangements of
Galás' older recordings, plus songs from the new album La Serpenta
Canta as well as brand new songs.
Friday 17th October - Defixiones, Will and Testament
8.00pm at Royal Festival Hall, London. Tickets available from the Box Office: 020 7960 4242 or book online at rfh.org.uk
Sunday 2nd November - Frenzy: Concert for Aileen Wuornos
8.00pm at Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow. For ticket information, check www.glasgay.co.uk - 0141 353 8000
News & Events
Diamanda double double release announced
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