Diamanda Galás: Returns with ‘De-formation’ and ‘Devil’ Reissue

On Día de Los Muertos, the noted avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás released two major works: a new, harrowing piano variation and a remastered version of a key album from the plague years.

It was November 1st, Día de Los Muertos. The date was fitting for an artist whose work has consistently focused on themes of loss, trauma, and the marginalized dead, particularly those who died in plague, anger, and state-sanctioned isolation1. On this date, Diamanda Galás presented two offerings through her own Intravenal Sound Operations imprint. The first is ‘De-formation: Second Piano Variations,’ a new, definitive live recording. The second is a remastered reissue of her 1988 album, ‘You Must Be Certain of the Devil’. One is a work of internal, skeletal horror; the other, an external, vocal-led polemic.

For listeners who have followed her work, Galás is an important figure who gives voice to a specific kind of righteous fury. This dual release appears to be a deliberate curatorial act, forcing a connection between the institutional cruelties of 1912 and the hypocrisies of 1988. It serves as a reminder that the “plague mentality”—the urge to marginalize the sick—persists.

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