DIAMANDA GALÁS (ALSO KNOWN AS: PANOPTIKON)

I love October, don't you? It makes me fish out all my old scary albums. Here's one that rears its ugly head from the depths of Hades. One fit for those looking for something truly scary this Halloween.

To the unwary 'Panoptikon' will sound like it was created in an experimental weapons laboratory in Los Alamos. Designed solely to torment and destroy those of sound mind.

Here Diamanda Galas pushes her vocal acrobatics to the extreme. So forced and powerful, they sound like the high end range of a violin just before the strings burst. They swoop and swirl from high pitched caterwauling to growling rabid dog, amongst a sea of strange electronic noise. This is followed by what sounds like the demonic possession of human beings. Quite literally like 'Regan' from the 'Exorcist'. Track upon unpleasant track of tormented souls trying to avoid the clutches of Satan himself. The swirling slabs of noise and Gargoyle voices speaking in tongues should be enough to have you pulling the bed sheets up over your face like Stan Laurel when that Bat was flying around his face in a haunted mansion.

This is utterly unique and really disturbing. The operatic gutteral wailings and shrieking will shatter your valuable chandeliers and all glass objects within screaming distance. So beware folks.

This self titled 1984 release has sadly never seen the light of day on CD. Such a pity then that we're left with this super recording only available in its original 1984 old scratchy vinyl format. It actually adds to the appeal. It sounds like a Satanic mass played by a coven of witches in the 1850's.

Apparently she found the production values of too low quality to merit a CD release. This is very surprising and I guess there must be other reasons for this decision. There's no one more annoyed by crumby recording technology than me. Sitting with my vinyl copy I have to say that there's nothing amiss at all. At some moments there's two and at sometimes three Diamanda Galas's screeching and panning in unison in extreme stereo - battering my poor ears to oblivion and leaving my hair standing on end.

Great stuff - but don't play it in front of your relatives or they'll send for the men in their funny white suits who'll be 'coming to take you away ha, ha'