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Diamanda Galás

Sound description

Dirges of death, the soundtrack of suicide, or simply the sound of bees living in your head.

RIYL

Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, the Kronos Quartet, Bjork

Influences

German expressionist theater, the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Laurie Anderson, Nina Hagen, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Pat Benetar, Ralph Stanley, John Cage, Edith Piaf, O.V. Wright, Timi Yuro, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa

Discography

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Vocalist, pianist, composer, and poet Diamanda Galás has a three-octave range, which she applies to experimental compositions that vary from goth to electronica to opera and into territories hitherto only charted by the out-there composers like Frank Zappa and Laurie Anderson. Her dark, dramatic looks and occult themes in albums like her 1982 debut Litanies of Satan have caused some to accuse her of satanism.

Galás came to international attention for her late '80s three-part "plague mass" concerning the AIDS epidemic as -- in her view -- referenced in the Bible, in particular Psalms and Leviticus. After Galás performed the first installment of her mass, The Masque of the Red Death, in Italy, the Italian government denounced her as a heretic.

Galás has also been involved in AIDS awareness campaigns, activism, and support groups, having lost a brother and close friend to the epidemic. Her songs have been heard in movie soundtracks such as Bram Stoker's Dracula and Natural Born Killers.

Her album Gulity! Guilty! Guilty! was released in 2008. She returned to San Diego in January 2011, to speak at UCSD’s Sonic Diasporas Alumni Festival.

In 2017, Galás released an album of traditional and jazz standards, All the Way, as well as a live album, At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem.

In August 2022, Galás released her album Broken Gargoyles via Intravenal Sound Operations. The title refers to WW1 soldiers who were so facially disfigured they were called “broken gargoyles." The first incarnation of the work was played as a sound installation at the Kapellen Leprosarium (Leper's Sanctuary) in Hanover, Germany, built around 1250 and once used to quarantine those who suffered from the plague and leprosy in the Middle Ages.

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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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