Powerhouse vocalist, composer and avant-garde icon Diamanda Galás has announced not one, but two new albums, making it the first musical projects since her Guilty, Guilty, Guilty album released in 2008.
The first album, All The Way, is a collection of “radical re-workings,” of traditional and jazz standards, all morphed and bent to Galás’ unique style, where she reframes melodies from legendary artists such as Frank Sinatra and Johnny Paycheck (“Pardon Me I’ve Got Someone to Kill”) utilizing her iconic vocal style.
All The Way will include remakes such as the iconic “The Thrill is Gone,” as well as a solo piano interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight.” “O Death” will anchor itself as the albums centerpiece as the American traditional has become a staple in Galás’ live performances.
The second album is a live album, At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem, which is a recording of Galás’ performance at the Saint Thomas the Apostle Church in Harlem, NY. The performance became a hot topic among the music community, with The New York Times calling the album “guttural and operatic, baleful and inconsolable, spiritual and earthy, polyglot and wordless, nuanced and unhinged.”
The concert itself was composed of what Galás calls “death songs,” which were song in Italian, German, French and Greek. Performances of death poems by Cessare Pavese and Ferdinand Freiligrath, interpretations of songs by Jacques Brel and Albert Ayler will make an appearance on the album.
You can stream two of the new tracks below as well as check out the full tracklists for both, and get your eardrums ready to be challenged when she drops both albums this year.
All The Way:
All the Way
You Don’t Know What Love Is
The Thrill is Gone
Round Midnight
O Death
Pardon Me I’ve Got Someone to Kill
At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem:
Verrá la more e avrá tuoi occhi
Anoixe Petra
Angels
Die Stunde Kommt
Fernand
O Death
Amsterdam
Artemis
Let My People Go
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