Malediction and Prayer
Diamanda Galás
(Asphodel Records)

This CD represents a new direction for a performer who's made a career out of sharp turns. Best known for her work on the outer limits of performance art, Galás actually began as a classical-piano prodigy, and then spent the early '70s on the free-jazz circuit. While her solo work resembles a series of cathartic, one-woman operas, she's also released a hard-kicking rock CD with Led Zeppelin's bassist.

By comparison, this collection of blues, folk, and art songs seems almost tame, yet it's probably her best album so far. Recorded in concert with only her sparse, rhythmic piano riveting the production, Galás pushes her three-and-a-half octave voice over an emotional territory nearly as wide.

"The Thrill Is Gone" lays primal wailing over a stately dance motif, while Johnny Cash's kitschy "25 Minutes to Go" becomes a strong, bluesy ballad. Willie Dixon's "Insane Asylum" finds her scat singing along with the piano before letting her voice suddenly dissolve into chromatic ululations that seem more sax-like than human. She strips the Supremes' "My World Is Empty" down to its haunting bones, and, in her stunning take on Son House's "Death Letter," she slurs over the words as if articulation of the loss might be more than she could bear. In contrast, her chanson settings of poems by Baudelaire and Pasolini are lilting and tautly restrained.

As a performer, Galás always has set her virtuosic ability against the experience of enormous suffering. For all its varied material, this CD is tied together by the dark kernel she uncovers at the heart of each song.

© Edward Batchelder
(from Jazziz)