Like hearing a horror story from a tortured soul.
San Diego-raised Diamanda Galás was born in 1955 into a Greek family. Throughout her adolescence, she would play many instruments like the violin and piano. She would start getting into musical performance when she and her father would perform traditional Arabic and Greek music. After college, she would begin to venture into the music field by joining a jazz band called Black Music Infinity. She would continue releasing music that fuse multiple genres of rock, jazz and non-music sound art. Galás has an impressive catalog that spans nearly 50 years, and the end seems nowhere in sight.
To say Diamanda Galás is avant-garde would be an understatement. And Broken Gargoyles does not deviate from this reputation. The album is made up of two tracks that seamlessly blend into one another. The first track, titled “Broken Gargoyles I. Mutilatus,” introduces us to Galás’ nightmare of sound art. Mutilatus translated from Latin to English means “mutilated,” which is a fitting title for the track. It spans 23 minutes and is full of the most horrific and demented sounds you’ll ever hear. During the runtime, you can expect to be jump scared by Galás screaming her lungs out as if she is getting tortured by a spirit. There are instruments like violins, percussion and synthesizers, but they’re so distorted and pitched that they become background noise. It ends with a muddied piano that fades into silence. The piano also introduces the second track, “Broken Gargoyles II. Abiecto.” It continues the same screaming vocals over the ear-piercing noise that the first track had. The only notable difference is Galás’ vocals becoming intelligible during the middle part of the track. It ends with vocoded vocals and ambient static fading into silence.
With Broken Gargoyles, there are a few positives with a lot of negatives. One positive is that Galás created an atmosphere unlike anything ever heard. The nightmare aesthetic she was trying to go for was done perfectly. However, Galás’ vocals constantly jump scaring got to the point where it became a bit aggravating. She could have either built up the vocals before hitting the climax or kept the randomness to a minimum. Turning down the levels when they were mixing could have helped. This is not an album for average listeners and a difficult listen for avid ones.
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