This beautifully-rendered remastering of Diamanda Galás’ landmark 1986 album The Divine Punishment was issued on CD at about the same time that last year’s epic Broken Gargoyles, a work partly based on disfigured WWI veterans (see my review***), was released. Now both are getting a deluxe treatment on LP. It’s hard to believe that the last pressing of The Divine Punishment was in 1989, and in the US that meant a co-release with Mute and Restless, who seemed to be trying a bit of everything at the time. Well, those were the days. Anyway, now with an updated, blue-toned, thick glossy cover, lyric inner sleeve, and spooky poster, this is a very nice package. 

As I mentioned in my review of Broken Gargoyles, it feels strange to try to quantify a Diamanda Galás record. The Divine Punishment is about the AIDS crisis, which at the time had killed about 16,000 people in the United States but was only getting started, a situation exacerbated by Ronald and Nancy Reagan refusing to even acknowledge what was happening. So this was among the first howls of pain and protest, and it remains harrowing. It’s not exactly something to compare to the latest hit parade. If there still is a hit parade.

 

With the instrumentation being essentially piano and synthesizer, including some additional synthesizer by Dave Hunt, Galás draws upon texts from the Old Testament and spits them back at those who would cast judgment and withhold compassion while pretending to walk a righteous path. Galás’ voice, always otherworldly and seemingly free of limits, is the focal point, but there is also a lot going on musically down in the depths.

 

There are two songs: “Deliver Me From Mine Enemies” and “Free Among The Dead,” although both have multiple sections. The album starts with percussion and vocal treatments while Galas recites Leviticus, Chapter 15 in a tone that is both vengeful and mocking. “This is the law of the plague, To teach when it is clean and when it is unclean.” The songs blends into a desperate, wailing reading of an Excerpt from Psalm 59, Galas sounding…well, haunted isn’t even the word, as unidentifiable sounds swirl and rumble softly below her. Combined with Galas’ unearthly, operatic voice, these are truly disturbing pieces, conveying all the uncertainty, anger, and death that was just beginning to come into view. Here it’s worth noting that Galas’ brother, playwright Philip-Dimitri Galás, would die of AIDS in 1986, although she did not know he was sick when she began this piece, the first of what would become known as the Masque Of The Red Death Trilogy of performances and recordings. Sections 3-5 do not have lyrics per se, and in the piece entitled “We Shall Not Accept Your Quarantine” the vocalizations sound like the frenzied chatterings of souls trapped in hell. During “Ε Ξελόυ Mε [Deliver Me],” Galas questions and beseeches before her voice truly takes flight against a low thrum.

 

“Yιατί, Ó Θεός ? [Why, O God?],” a final wordless section of groans and cackles, ends suddenly before “Deliver Me From Mine Enemies” finishes with Galas’ literally hissing lines of scripture from Psalm 22. “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Galas would soon find herself condemned by the Catholic Church for her topless performance of The Plague Mass, itself a response to the church’s condemnation of AIDS victims. Somehow I doubt she was upset.

 

“Free Among The Dead” starts with a whispered, metallic (as in the substance, not the genre) reading of Psalm 88 that abruptly shifts to ominous piano and synthesizer as Galás wails. A section of Lamentations, Chapter 3 is performed in a keening mix of Italian and English, while Sono L’Antichristo (I Am The Antichrist), written by Galás, is solely in Italian, the language of Dante Alighieri and his Nine Circles of Hell, as well as the modern tongue of the Roman Catholic Church. This last song, amidst thundering piano chords and unidentifiable percussion, ends the The Divine Punishment with one of the most frightening vocal performances ever put to record. It is truly challenging to listen to, but perhaps nothing else could have been as appropriate. Indeed, thirty-seven years after The Divine Punishment, it’s estimated that over 40 million people have died of AIDS worldwide.

 

There is not much here to compare to rock and roll. Or classical music. Or avant garde music. Or even the vast majority of music at all. The work of Diamanda Galás is singular and stands largely alone, and it strikes me that it serves a unique purpose. This is music for inner exploration, for exorcising something of the world from oneself, and thereby perhaps gaining something more important. It will accompany you during the Dark Night of the Soul, in whatever form it might take. If you want a soundtrack to a journey that will leave you changed, then here it is. It is not, however, a journey you can take successfully without an open spirit, an understanding of the darkness of human nature, respect for the fiercesome power of love, and some form of steeling to keep you from simply turning away for something that asks less of you. Of course, you could say the same about life itself.

Rating: A

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