Gala - Lose Yourself In Me (New Single 2011)

Gala's decision to embrace her dance legacy was clearly a close shave.

Owner of possibly the best sculpted cheekbones short of a 90 degrees angle, enigmatic musical hero of mine Gala has impressively sent shock-waves through my shivering body upon my first half a dozen listens of her very new spine-tingling single called, you might have guessed, Lose Yourself In Me, a dance-identified electronic, throbbing dance ballad.

Positively drenched in all her trademark Gala quirks, its melancholic splendor finds the Italian dance warrior on beguiling form (fans would expect nothing less).  I simply cannot think when I am enjoying new music as much as this - what a fine treat for my ears to hear it, an unexpected return to unequivocal dance music from the creator of the 90s classics Freed From Desire, Let A Boy Cry, Come Into My Life, Everyone Has Inside and Suddenly (which were all Italian top 5 smashes).  The song has already been embraced by a random German radion station and is #5 on this chart.  Gala continues to reek havoc around the world whilst touring and rigorously sharpening her game.  If we get a video, expect her signature androgynous posturing. Fed on a diet of visceral rhythms and philosophical lyrics, Lose Yourself In Me falls nothing short of mesmerizing.

New Gala EP In The Works

I am rather busy these days, but the return of Gala with a new EP has brought me back. The enigmatic Italian music creator is working on the project in New York, but has been busy on the road in Europe performing her classic 90s hits as well as her more recent Tough Love album material, including the bristling dance-rock hybrid Different Kind of Love and the passionate title track. From the same album, the pre-civil partnership dance-pop ballad You & Me remains one of my favourite songs of all time and I just cannot wait to hear what the singer has came up with next!

A Message From Gala

Hi Handsome, let's organize a show ! why not ?
I don't know the place... But you seem an expert.
Yes for the interview any time for my real and attentive fans.

you are right about the electro sound, it will make it easy, and I like things the hard way though... I am getting remixes too. Anyone interested and really good you know, put them in contact.

I perform with a women band here in NY and in Punta del Este at the end of the month.

I hope the new album a collection of the best songs of my work in the past few years will be out in 2009, things are chnaging in the music world and I want to do the right thing, but I am a very independent mind and people ( straight men in particular at labels) don't know how to deal with it...:-)

Gala

Career Defining Lunacy

Good old barmy Gala finally squeezes out some fresh produce, from her much-anticipated sophomore album of course, via youtube: listen to the elated bristling euro-grunge plunge of Different Kind of Love, which is a shimmering strangle hold on Holly Vallance's seamless bunsen burner template gem Desire; the blissful coos that begin You & Me sound promising, with her typical flair for adamant lyrics; the No Doubt sounding No Man (is her new vocal style deliberately jarring, or just in free fall against inhibition?); salsa slam, sanity-sealing clarification I See Through Love breaks things down; the berserk hic-up Tough Love is the mooted first single (I hope not); the soggy tampon ballad Number 3 is like blowing your nose and proudly showing a stranger the contents; the yodelling Crying plods like an attempt to flush a blocked toilet and could certainly benefit from a "less is more" vocal approach; Faraway remains stealthy and silky smooth, her stoic ambition has stood the test of the time; and the impatient, fed up stump of Do It continues her tribal quest for immediate gratification of mind, body and solo career.



Most impressive of the new "new" tracks is the murky slurring persperation of She Really Wants It - Gala's sexual politics have always been more gripping than a corset, as are her grappling vocals that yelp defiantly. The renound sleek and sharp image, always defined by baffling and androgynous philosphies, an impassioned voice in pain over gender as a torturing and tedious expectation she refuses to shape herself to is now reinvented with colour and her advantage of warrior-like bone structure. The chaffing track oozes a tempting electro discharge that rivals the foaming filth of Dannii Minogue's best unreleased J.C.A penetrations (but with less asphixiation). The European-native has always been derranged and frankly bonkers; it took some time, as Siobhan Fahey once cackled, but here she is, back, back, back! Her shit is definately together..

There is no arguing that these songs stitch together some pretty disparate and barren moments of production. However, there is terrific excitement and a concious madness spearing through to make the decade-long wait worth every breakdown in between. The turgid stomping on, well, almost all of these clips, actually becomes her - the inital shock subsides and a storm of melody bursts and suddenly, with career defining luncacy, there is life in the old Gala yet.

Bisexual-Vibe Brilliance

Enigmatic Italian pop myth Gala Rizzatto is something of a visionary, yet her songs are far from impractical and imbued with a keenly absurd intellectual spirit. Freed From Desire translated something so instant into music that is genuinely inventive to this day - her concise lyrics are sometimes bonkers yet always marked by an altogether elegant enthusiasm that many other internationally famous Italian pop stars cannot compete with. Even a rumored speech impediment that tainted her early rise, when many understood her chorus to be a stammered pronunciation of Bananarama, could not put a stop to her mission and the spirited dance diva went on to sell over 6 million CD's that sometimes came with a free jar of Dolmio sauce in specific regions of southern Italy.

The sadistic, gender-bending Let A Boy Cry was theatrically ridiculous enough to serve as an unofficial relation to Dana International's humble signature Diva, holding her sexually ambiguous nerve with an arresting, androgynously flamboyant manner, and contemptuous feeling towards bigots as well as baguettes (a 'no carbs Gala' resulted in a worldwide spaghetti standstill that Italy's tabloids have still not forgiven her for - the Rizzatto clan were also famously exiled after the corrupt practices of the family business 'Rizzatto Risotto' finally went public). After 3 delirious number 1's in her native country, her next single Suddenly could only limp to a pathetic #4 despite Gala's blasse pleas to her home nation that a glass-free 'Rizzatto Risotto' shrimp and fennel recipe would soon restore her family's repuation.



The controversial carbs stance meant an impressive new slim-line physique accompanied her recent musical comeback of sorts - the characteristically dramatic single Faraway did not fare well in France, yet proved to be a top ten hit in Greece where it was also bizarrely covered by a pop idol contestant who took it to number 1. No album title has been given, but clips are up on www.galasound.com: A Different Kind of Love sounds like Holly V's electro-craving Desire with added Cher-isms, but on a budget; Do It vents impatient primal energy; and many others sound equally promising.

Who knows what will happen, but her next move should it be fuelled by either a record deal or national forgiveness promises to be worth waiting for. Through her strained singing, Gala has always grappled with her vocals to make them more interesting, transcending her limitations, which soon became distinctive to her brand of dance and striking iconography. Such a rare capture of bisexual-vibe beauty and mystique, so glamorous and sleek with triumph, it has been nearly a decade since she has last released music in the UK. Here is a timely reminder of her 2 biggest hits.

Faraway

Freed From Desire (Radio Edit)
Freed From Desire (Allister's Full Vocal Mix)
Freed From Desire (Q.F.X. Full Vocal Remix)
Freed From Desire (Da Loops Hype Mix)

Let A Boy Cry (Motiv8 Radio Mix)
Let A Boy Cry (Album Version)
Let A Boy Cry (Motiv8 Floormungus Vocal Mix)