DIAMANDA GALÁS DEFIXIONES WILL AND TESTAMENT DOUBLE LIVE ALBUM MUTE, PLAYGROUND RELEASE: DECEMBER 15, 2003 REVIEW: FEBRUARY 10, 2004

“Corpse of young Armenian boy (Syria)”, “Rotting heads of massacred Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians.”, “Young Turk fishing for bodies in the Smyrna Gulf for the purpose of loot.” These are just a few of the captions for pictures in the booklet of “Defixiones Will and Testament”, and an indication, if one is needed, that this ins’t exactly your average pop album.
“Defixiones Will and Testament” is an outcry against genocide, and in particular what has been called “the minor holocaust” of Asia Minor, the memory of which has apparently been suppressed. Using piano and minimal electronics, Galás tries to give voice to the long since dead by using an Armenian liturgy, fragments of a poem by Italian author and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini and bits of her own earlier material, among other things. The result is an at times frighteningly intense canvas splashed with blood and crushed bones and tainted by injustices past and present. Since the multilingual nature of the project renders many parts incomprehensible to me, it’s also at times close to a sort of abstract expressionism where Galás voice speaks out with majestic pride amid all the conjuring of human suffering where the words themselves make less of an impact than the performance of them.
“Defixiones Will and Testament” is ambitious to say the least. It also takes Galás into darker realms of the soul than most of us would like to visit, and is a difficult listen in many ways. I’m captivated by it at times, but other times the wild splashes of piano and the shriek of Galás’ voice is just a little too much for me to take. So, although impressive, it’s not an album I will play very often.

KRISTOFFER NOHEDEN