‘The Sporting Life’ by Diamanda Galás and John Paul Jones

 Girl Power Week is coming to a close. It’s been fun. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried and we’ve longed for the long of these wonderful rock’n’roll women. So to close it out today I thought I’d test your limits for extreme music with Diamanda Galás, an avante-garde keyboardist, composer and singer. I’m gonna warn you now. The chances you will dig this are slim, but that’s ok as long as you give it a try first. Time to expand your horizons.

 Diamanda Galás was born in San Diego, California in 1955. From a very early age she mastered the piano. By 24 she was the lead in ‘Un Jour comme un autre’, a French opera based on the alleged arrest and torture of a Turkish woman accused of treason. What makes Diamanda stand out as an artist is not only her abilities on piano and with arranging, but her three and a half octave, bone chilling voice. In the 80’s, Diamanda made a trilogy of operas collectively titled ‘Masque of the Red Death’ about the world AIDS crisis. It is probably, and I mean this in a very good way, one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard. It sends chills up my spine and down every other part of my body.

 With this album, ‘The Sporting Life’, long time admirer John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame joined up with Diamanda. This is easily her most accesible album. It’s almost weirder to hear her with this type of music than as the an opera singer. It’s a lot ike those ‘Punk Sings Disco’ albums you see everywhere except it’s ‘Avante-Garde Goes Cajun’. This album goes all over the map of musical styles. Strangely it somehow works. 

 So if you don’t like avante-garde operas about AIDS that’s fine. Diamanda Galás definitely isn’t everyones cup of tea but you don’t know until you listen. And hey, John Paul Jones likes her. That’s good enough for me to give her a shot.

Song: ‘Devil’s Rodeo’