“The Beast Within” is the new album by Brazilian artist, Diego Garcia; exploring gender identities within contemporary electronic music. The artist uses two of their distinguished artistic identities: The Princess of Death, her feminine identity – where there is an exploration of a more introspective and corrosive textures commonly associated with patriarchal values; and Projekt Gestalten, his masculine identity – where melodic and hypnotic sounds, often associated with matriarchy, are emphasised.
“The Beast Within”是巴西艺术家Diego Garcia的新专辑；探索当代电子音乐中的性别认同。艺术家使用了他们两个杰出的艺术身份：死亡公主，她的女性身份——探索通常与父权价值观相关的更内省和腐蚀性的纹理；和 Projekt Gestalten，他的男性身份——强调旋律和催眠的声音，通常与母权制有关。
In this project, Diego’s aim is to dichotomise their gender identities inspired by a point-and-click adventure game from the 90’s called “Gabriel Knight 2 – The Beast Within”. The story was written by American game designer, Jane Jensen with original music composed by her husband, Robert Holmes. The protagonist is on the trail of a strange wolf, murderer of a little girl. Gabriel was asked to take care of this evil and suspects that this case is paranormal in nature. Together with his assistant, Grace Nakimura, he discovers the dark truth behind the history of Bavaria. The gameplay alternates between Gabriel and Grace and its storyline is only explored indirectly by Diego – as it is deeply connected with their childhood and formative years and still remains as one of their all-time favourite games. The project also doesn’t sample any of the original music created for the original game by Robert Holmes, however, Diego was in touch with him via e-mail throughout the creative process of making the album and Mr. Holmes already heard the album and gave his blessing.
在这个项目中，Diego 的目标是在 90 年代一款名为“Gabriel Knight 2 – The Beast Within”的点击式冒险游戏的启发下，将他们的性别身份一分为二。故事由美国游戏设计师 Jane Jensen 编写，原创音乐由她的丈夫 Robert Holmes 创作。主角正在追踪一只奇怪的狼，凶手是一个小女孩。 Gabriel 被要求处理这个邪恶的事情，并怀疑这个案件本质上是超自然的。他与助手 Grace Nakimura 一起发现了巴伐利亚历史背后的黑暗真相。游戏玩法在 Gabriel 和 Grace 之间交替进行，其故事情节仅由 Diego 间接探索——因为它与他们的童年和成长时期有着密切的联系，并且仍然是他们最喜欢的游戏之一。该项目也没有对 Robert Holmes 为原版游戏创作的任何原创音乐进行采样，但是，迭戈在制作专辑的整个创作过程中通过电子邮件与他保持联系，而 Holmes 先生已经听过这张专辑和给了他的祝福。
Just like in the gameplay, Diego alternates between both of their feminine and masculine identities in order to create original pieces of music. As Projekt Gestalten, an array of dance tracks are functionally presented; ranging from melodic and trippy to club-ready driving techno; dissecting a more rational aspect of the game’s storyline. In contrast, The Princess of Death goes into an ambient and experimental approach; exploring liturgical themes that includes a dark and dystopian cover of the traditional gospel song “When The Saints Go Marching In”, a song that is featured throughout the whole Gabriel Knight franchise in many different versions. In the end, the gender polarising concept is extrapolated and both aliases are finally merged into one another; leading to the Gestalt principle, alluded in Diego’s main alias, being fully applied as a whole.
就像在游戏中一样，迭戈在她们的女性和男性身份之间交替，以创作原创音乐。作为 Projekt Gestalten，在功能上呈现了一系列舞曲；从旋律和迷幻到俱乐部就绪的驾驶技术；剖析游戏故事情节的一个更合理的方面。相比之下，《死亡公主》则采用了环境和实验的方法；探索礼仪主题，其中包括传统福音歌曲“When The Saints Go Marching In”的黑暗反乌托邦翻唱，这首歌在整个 Gabriel Knight 特许经营权的许多不同版本中都有出现。最后，性别两极分化的概念被外推，两个别名最终相互融合；导致了在 Diego 的主要别名中提到的格式塔原则，作为一个整体得到了充分应用。
The project’s ultimate goal is to challenge preconceived notions of how a specific gender should sound/behave and to explore light/dark, sacred/secular, good/evil, male/female using the Gabriel Knight universe as the blueprint: a gender-neutral game where the player is forced to assume a feminine and a masculine role in order to navigate through the story. Additionally, the game was written by a woman (a rational aspect often associated with masculinity); while her husband composed the music (an emotional facet traditionally related to femininity). All of these ideas are perfectly aligned with Diego’s own trajectory as an artist and their distinct artistic identities featuring distorted gender values – which comes full circle in this project.
该项目的最终目标是挑战特定性别应该如何发声/行为的先入为主的观念，并以 Gabriel Knight 宇宙为蓝图探索光明/黑暗、神圣/世俗、善/恶、男性/女性：一个性别中立的游戏玩家被迫扮演女性和男性角色，以便在故事中导航。此外，游戏是由女性编写的（通常与男性气质相关的理性方面）；而她的丈夫创作了音乐（传统上与女性气质有关的情感方面）。所有这些想法都与 Diego 自己作为艺术家的轨迹以及他们独特的艺术身份完全一致，以扭曲的性别价值观为特征——这在这个项目中得到了完整的循环。
The album is scheduled to be released in the Winter of 2022 on a heavy-weight 180g double vinyl edition and also on digital format. Part of the profits from the digital sales will be donated to queer organizations fighting homophobia.
该专辑计划于 2022 年冬季以重量级 180 克双黑胶版和数字格式发行。数字销售的部分利润将捐赠给打击同性恋恐惧症的酷儿组织。
All Tracks arranged and produced by Diego Garcia
Mastering by Inland
Graphic Design and Art Direction by Diego Garcia
Illustrations by Vargtimmen
Photographer: Vanessa Marino
Make-up Artist: Samantha Pottmaier
Manufactured and Distributed by Triple Vision
Cat. n° VRA002 – All rights reserved
℗ & © VRAAA Records 2022
所有曲目由 Diego Garcia 编排和制作
内陆掌握
Diego Garcia 的平面设计和艺术指导
Vargtimmen 的插图
摄影师：凡妮莎·马里诺
化妆师：Samantha Pottmaier
由 Triple Vision 制造和分销
猫。 n° VRA002 – 保留所有权利
℗ & © VRAAA Records 2022
