Customer Reviews

Vena Cava

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This album by vocal experimentalist Diamanda Galas is a nerve-wracking and harrowing exploration of the human mind...viewed from the inside, so to speak...in the throes of insanity and AIDS dementia. And as such, this is a very unpleasant work...but it succeeds admirably in communicating the unpleasantness of its subject, even succeeding to the point that the listener is made exceedingly uncomfortable with the sonic goings-on. Galas here returns to the methods of her early work, with voice accompanied by complex and constantly-shifting processing and shifts in sonic perspective that are calculated to bewilder and disorient. This is also a subject that Galas likely has more than a little insight on, as she lost her brother to AIDS in circumstances which I have read placed him in the state that she documents in this work. In short, if you want pleasant, 'nice' vocal material, go buy a Charlotte Church CD. This ain't it. But if you want a powerful, brutally-stark, and intense work that both showcases one of the most amazing voices in New Music _and_ gives voice to a horrific plight, this is something you should pick up.

Diamanda Galas's 1993 album, "Vena Cava," is taken from the perspective of a raving lunatic locked in solitary confinement. Unlike her past recordings, "Masque of Red Death" and "Plague Mass," this CD puts the singer's vocals on the forefront with very little musical production. Set in a vast and cold emptiness, "Vena Cava" unleashes a slew of sonic spasms from a mind that's wasting away from dementia. Galas herself creates an alarming sense of isolation by battling an illness she can't control. In every track, she is a haggard, old woman who fights a losing battle with insanity and anticipates the permanent calm of death's sleep. On some occasions, Galas mumbles under the covers as if she's groggy from the medication. Her whispers are barely audible, so curious audiences can eavesdrop on her multiple conversations. In other instances, she spews her lines in violent convulsions, randomly mixing cackles and caws with quivering screeches. Feeling her grip on reality slip away, she twitters logical words and phrases in a harsh and obsessive manner. Shocking listeners at every turn, she repeats zeroes and ones in the binary system, multiplies numbers by two, and spits either savage curse words or bedroom prayers. She even awards cash prizes to imaginary game show contestants, kissing the CD with black humor. To further entrap conservatives, Galas escorts them into her own poetic subconsciousness. She dreams about putting a gun to her temple, drunkenly recalls how there is no beer in heaven, and catches broken images of a child's corpse being burned in a garbage bag. These sporadic exorcisms are so graphic that one can somehow envision the damaged parts of the human brain; a mind that can no longer process and store even the simplest bits of information. In-between these heartrending bouts, Galas delivers tearful renditions of "Amazing Grace," Mozart's "Porgi Amor," and "Hush Little Baby." In every song, she's a mourning soprano who awaits the soothing warmth of the sun and the divine light of angels. In the end, of course, Galas demands when death (in the form of a birdie that catches souls) will end her ongoing agony.
One must keep in mind that "Vena Cava" is an experimental studio recording. In a way, it lacks the riveting power of 1991's "Plague Mass," which she had performed live in NYC. Still, this album is worth buying because it encapsulates an atmosphere that only Diamanda Galas dared to enter. It's a sterilized hospital room filled with elders sporting needles in their arms and shattered memories in their heads.

Diamanda Galas places us at ground zero in a maelstrom of insanity. This album showcases her technical virtuosity, both with her voice (speaking, singing, howling and doing uncategorizable things) and with the multilayer synthesizer effects that punctuate the fragmented narrative. Amazingly enough, the entire hour-long work is a seamless live performance, which is a testament to her stamina. Experiencing the album requires stamina as well; I confess that it took me several listens before I could handle the entire piece at one sitting, and that's not saying how bad it is, that's saying how *good* it is. When the listener finally reaches the end, it's like being cleansed and reborn. In the face of the full fury of Ms. Galas, controversies-of-the-week like Marilyn Manson blow away like the cardboard clowns they are. Need I add that this album is not for the easily disturbed?

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.

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.

Ms. Galas has returned to the psychological territory she explored in her earlier works such as the Divine Punishment and Wild Women with Steak Knives of the 1980s. Once again she has broken down barriers in thought and sound to map the most extreme corners of the human spirit and soul. She is a pioneer in the uses of various permutations of language, sound and text to explore the infinite states of human consciousness. This is at times a frightening voice to hear within the work that is Vena Cava, but it is one you cannot forget. Vena Cava is a performance of unparalled originality and power--it is Diamanda Galas' magnum opus.

I will just say this as clearly as possible. Listening to this cd is an emotionally exausting experince. Much like watching a finely crafted film, this cd travels through calm, insanity, the erradict, the haunting, and saddness. Listening to this cd: I squirmed at the screetching maddness and pain, I cringed and shifted in fear, I cried at the desperation, and finally got to the point where I was laying there on my bed weeping, because it was all I had left to give. This cd demands you as a listener to emerse yourself in vena cava as an emotional participant. If you've never experienced something like this, it might even change your life, or at least your day.

I had heard extracts from this album and I was completely astonished by Diamandas' voice. I bought it and heard one track, I've never been so afraid in my life, I couldn't sleep that night, I didn't understand. But then I heard all of it, better said, I listened to it and Diamanda took me through. She is a splendid singer and a brave person to express herself the way she does.
My mother says she's a witch, but she's just stupid and coward because she's afraid to try to understand her.
This album is fabulous but you've got to have great conscience of what you're doing before you play it. It's a magical trip she offers, with a different meaning every time you play it.
Diamanda Galas definitely opened up my horizons.
Besides she has a wonderful voice, almost angelical sometimes, but beauty is an idea we've made throughout society and this doesn't help. This, trust me, is beautiful.

The other reviews claim this or that about this album; however, Galas said this album is about one w/ severe clinical depression to where one is deprived of another voice in their life, & so one invents that other voice. From the outside looking in it might appear demented, but in fact it's the same process as the invention of a God through one's despair.. leading to a lot of dialogue or writing that's similar to the Old Testament: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"

excelent to the point in which the listener questions his/her own sanity. i reccomend it to anyone who wishes to listen until they are left standing on the edge of sheer horror. art taken to the highest most brutal level.