Diamanda Galas

at Mama Kin
by Angela Dauthi

There’s a cold streak that runs through the Mississippi delta. A howling shriek calls the bitter winds of madness to arrive. It joins souls, a frigid agony that ties and binds. Diamanda Galás, the priestess of heartbreak, calls to life the spirits of long-dead blues shamans and sends them into our souls. Loneliness and insanity capture hearts and put them on the auction block to be traded for ineffable results.

She wails and groans, her only accompaniment a piano as Luciferian as her voice. Earthquake low rumbling with lightning flashes of sharp highs lifting its voice; an inhuman duet – woman and mahogany beast. Diamanda Galás chants in a violently sexy breath and then opens her throat to emit a screech like nails on a blackboard. Banshees are drawn to the keening, the blues of old stripped of its pretty and false trappings, exposed to the watchers like self-surgery, the howl of abject misery and madness unfiltered, unchecked.

As disturbing as her performance is, we are drawn closer, eyes fixed to the damned Seraphim as she leans back and screams rage again. We stare, absolutely still, while the music hurtles toward us, we don’t even think about ducking. If there is a Hell, a fire and brimstone inferno, there must be music. And if demons listen to anything, it’s the sound of Diamanda Galás.