The album's first track, "Panoptikon" (named after Panopticon, a type of prison building designed to allow all areas of a prison to be seen from one vantage point), deals with imprisonment, isolation, torture and extreme alienation as well as homicidal mania and vengeance.[citation needed] It incorporates tape, electronic manipulations[1] and distortion. It was composed by Diamanda Galas, with additional lyrics from In the Belly of the Beast by criminal and author Jack Abbott.
"Τραγούδια από το Αίμα Εχούv Φονός" (Song from the Blood of Those Murdered), recorded in 1981, consists solely of vocals in numerous vignettes. The recording is similar in texture to "Wild Women With Steak-Knives" from her debut album The Litanies of Satan (1982), but when the latter was hysterical and loud,[citation needed] "Τραγούδια" is slow, ghoulish and mournful.[citation needed] The singer was inspired by the tradition of Greek mourning rites,[citation needed] where women mourn the dead as well as seek revenge for the person responsible for the death.[citation needed] The words of "Τραγούδια" are sung in Greek and refer to the victims of the Greek junta regime that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.[2]
Diamanda Galas was first released in 1984 by record label Metalanguage.
In October 2020 Diamanda announced the remastering of the album done by Egyptian mastering engineer Heba Kadry, eventually completed in December 2020.
In September 2021 she announced the reissue of the album on CD and LP under her label Intravenal Sound Operations with different artwork, subsequently released on October 28, 2021, after being out of print for 37 years.
