Diamanda Galas – Divine Punishment [LP]

On June 30, 1986, the same day that Diamanda Gals’s The Divine Punishment was released, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Georgia’s so-called sodomy law in Bowers v. Hardwick, criminalizing consensual sex between men. At the time, about 15, 000 people were known to have died of AIDS in the U.S. alone, with little government acknowledgement besides suggestions to quarantine homosexuals on island colonies. By the end of 2021, the number of AIDS deaths globally would exceed 36 million.The first album in her Masque of the Red Death trilogy, The Divine Punishment is one of the most jarring works of art produced in response to the AIDS epidemic, and a milestone in Diamanda Gals’s artistry and activism. Gals uses her famous voice both as an orational instrument and as well as a physical representation of AIDS and those it afflicts. The album features the panphonic* dirge work of Gals, accompanied by analogue synthesizers played by Dave Hunt.