Search - Diamanda Galás :: Vena Cava

A Day in the Life

Eric Williams | Ann Arbor, Michigan | 11/17/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been a huge fan of Galas' work for several years, and Vena Cava may be my favorite Galas album. All of Galas' work is a fiery combination of extreme vocal technique and uncompromising political vision; the surface is so dazzling and shocking that it's easy to listen past the core of her work. She is the most compassionate artist I know, and the brutality of her pieces is matched by their compassion. Galas listens to the marginalized, the forgotten, the voiceless, and embodies them at maximum volume. In Vena Cava, Galas takes the listener through the fractured landscape of a person suffering dementia; seen as a coda to her extraordinary Plague Mass, this person may suffer the isolation and loss of faculties associated with the last stages of HIV-related illness. Galas begins this journey with a dialogue lifted from The Plague Mass. The ill person awakens to see the face of the devil (an extremely complex character in the context of Galas' work) and asks him the time. The devil's response? "How much time do you want?"What follows is a wrenching voyage through the emotional spectrum of one with little outside contact, a loose grip on an unbearable reality, and no recourse. A glorious portion of an aria (Galas trained bel canto for several years) is following by almost subsonic whispers, then ear-shattering, crazily repetitive "blocking exercises," lullabies, and amazingly potent yet brief vignettes that trace the speaker's life from infanthood ("Is that you daddy? Hi daddy,") to her family's whispered plans (unknowingly overheard by the patient) for the small, discrete wake appropriate to one dying a shameful death. In between is anger, sadness, utter despair, joy, denial, regret. This is an ingeniously realized portrait of the human spirit, in all its vulnerability. And it's often funny, which is a remarkable thing to say about so intense a work. Vena Cava's free form gives Galas the opportunity to improvise and test many voices and dialects. Characters appear and evaporate in their many guises, and Galas is simply brilliant in illustrating the gallows humor of the damned. Characteristically, snatches of humor are never sustained for long, but collide headlong into other emotional extremes.Also worth mentioning is the production, which is uncanny. Galas has used digital manipulation--echoes, filters and delays--since the early days of her career, but never to such amazing effect. Tight, concentric echoes suddenly give way to deep reverberation, which then abruptly stops altogether or trails off into a mechanical whine. This technique sculpts the sound. This is music in three dimensions, and gives the impression that the singer is moving through different rooms of the hospital, or of the mind, as she vocalizes.There is nothing else like it."

Not for the First Time Listener

Michael | Olympia, WA USA | 08/26/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This recording is for the established fan of Galas' work, as it is far more demanding of the listener than any other of her vary varied works, except perhaps for Schrei X. It aims, for instance, in spots to emulate the tedium of insanity such that it will seem self-indulgently repetitive, or quiet, or extreme. One might well ask if the demands placed on the listener are justified; one might well answer, "No." To get the most out of it, however, one must obey the command to "Play only at maximum volume"; good headphones and an hour dedicated to nothing but concentration should also be strongly recommended. In the complete opus of Galas' work, there is no choice but to buy and "endure" this recording with an open and attentive mind, but that really does little to make it seem, in some way, almost academic in spite of Galas' perfectly self-evident sincerity. Rewards are certainly there for the patient; otherwise, simply buy everything else by her."