Diamanda Galas is the eponymously titled second album by American
avant-garde musician
Diamanda Galás, released in 1984 by record label
Metalanguage.
Content
The album's first track, "Panoptikon" (named after
Panopticon, a type of prison building designed to allow all areas of a prison to be seen from one vantage point), deals with imprisonment, isolation, torture and extreme alienation as well as homicidal mania and vengeance.[citation needed] It incorporates
tape,
electronic manipulations[1] and distortion. It was composed by Diamanda Galas, with additional lyrics from In the Belly of the Beast by criminal and author
Jack Abbott.
"Τραγούδια από το Αίμα Εχούv Φονός" (Song from the Blood of Those Murdered), recorded in 1981, consists solely of vocals in numerous vignettes. The recording is similar in texture to "Wild Women With Steak-Knives" from her debut album The Litanies of Satan (1982), but when the latter was hysterical and loud,[citation needed] "Τραγούδια" is slow, ghoulish and mournful.[citation needed] The singer was inspired by the tradition of
Greek mourning rites,[citation needed] where women mourn the dead as well as seek revenge for the person responsible for the death.[citation needed] The words of "Τραγούδια" are sung in Greek and refer to the victims of the Greek
junta regime that ruled
Greece from 1967 to 1974.[2]
Diamanda Galas was first released in 1984 by record label
Metalanguage.
In October 2020 Diamanda announced the remastering of the album done by Egyptian mastering engineer
Heba Kadry, eventually completed in December 2020.
In September 2021 she announced the reissue of the album on CD and LP under her label
Intravenal Sound Operations with different artwork, subsequently released on October 28, 2021, after being out of print for 37 years.
Track listing
All lyrics are written by Diamanda Galás; all music is composed by Diamanda Galás and Richard Zvonar
Side A
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Panoptikon"
15:22
Side B
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Τραγούδια από το Αίμα Εχούv Φονός" (Song from the Blood of Those Murdered)