Diamanda Galás’ Valentine’s Day Massacre :: February 14, 2008; 6:30 and 9:30 pm :: Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, NYC.

Avant-garde vocalist and virtuoso pianist Diamanda Galás returns to The Knitting Factory to perform her annual and critically acclaimed Valentine’s Day Massacre, before the worldwide release of her much anticipated compilation, Guilty Guilty Guilty (MUTE UK, March 31, 2008).

With this spellbinding night of tragic and homicidal love songs, the dark queen of extended techniques turns standards from jazz, blues and rembetika into her own musical genre. The evening features favorite covers and longtime hits, including “Time (Interlude)” sung by Timi Yuro, Tracy Nelson’s “Down So Low”, “Long Black Veil” made popular by Johnny Cash, Ralph Stanley’s reaper song, “O Death”, John Lee Hooker’s “Burning Hell”, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You”, Earl Grant’s “Imitation of Life”, Edith Piaf’s “Padam Padam,” and surprise songs.

For her fourth Valentine’s Day Massacre, Galás carves songs of doomed love into haunting works that promise to rip your heart out. Sophisticated vocal weaponry combines with a driving, sometimes jaw-dropping, percussive piano style to conjure up a dazzling array of emotions, ranging from fleeting happiness to the terror brought upon by the death of love. Reaching into the heart of the blues, Galás takes it to new places of loneliness, occasionally breaking into the virtuosic singing of the Amanes – a type of improvised lamentation from Asia Minor.