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Vocalist and composer Pamela Z (Pam Brooks, born in Buffalo in 1956, raised in Colorado
and relocated to San Francisco
in 1985), follows
Diamanda Galas' example in setting her operatic vocal acrobatics within the context of electronic music, but expands it to live electronic music, sampling and found percussion objects.
Her first recording was the cassette Echolocation (1988).
She has since composed the multi-media pieces Parts of Speech (1995)
and Gaijin, as well as
Live/Work for "high-resolution DVD-Audio surround sound", available on
Immersion (Starkland).
A Delay Is Better (Starkland, 2005) assembles her most popular works,
composed between 1986 and 1997.
Bone Music (accompanied only by an empty water bottle) is a
quintessential example of her internal monologues, that explores a broad range
of registers, from baroque contralto to a bird's squeal, from
shamanic recitation to witchy shrieks.
The a-cappella
Badagada has several voices soaring indipendently and then joining
in choral syllabic repetition or battling in rhythmic counterpoint.
Number 3, also a cappella (except for a few metallic noises),
starts out in a simpler form of speech but then evolves into a complex
merry-go-round of interlocking voices.
In Tymes of Olde is a ballad (a real song with lyrics, not just
vocalizing) in which the singing voice tell her story amid
a multitude of mourning "echoes" while a looping childish cry provides the
unnerving "rhythm".
The monologue evolves into a dialogue and then into a chaotic discussion in
the charming Questions, that sets in motion a clockwork of parallel
loops of voices.
Mostly, subtlety prevails over sheer emotional outburst.
The unaccompanied pieces are thus more reminiscent of Meredith Monk than Galas.
The MUNI Sections and NEMIZ
are representative of her work in mixing vocal experiments and musique concrete.
Feral adds a bassoon to Pamela Z's experiments, and Obsession
adds a harp: both attain some of the darkest armospheres.
Lacking the tragic underpinning of Galas' requiems, Pamela Z's carefully
balanced vocal pieces invest heavily in the "choreography". Rather than focusing
on a dramatic persona (as Galas does), they explore universal ambience and
the collective subconscious.
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