Ethereal Princess Di

Watching ethereal vocalist and cellist Diana Obscura, the listener gets the feeling that she has stepped out of a fractured fairy tale book. With her wild mane of hair and her cello poised low, she attacks the instrument with the fury of Johnny Ramone and the reckless grace of a possessed Cinderella. “I had a very archaic childhood,” she explains. “My parents thought TV was evil and so they encouraged me to read. They had all these wonderful 19th-century storybooks and fairy tales, and it left a mark on me.”
Her new self-titled CD is full of references to Corbies (ravens, for the uninitiated) odes to St. Cecelia and spooky tales of Sirens. “Books were my main companion, and I’ve wanted to sort of re-create that feeling of the drama of those books.”
Obscura graduated from GSU with an English degree and a taste for the baroque. Soon, she joined Aphelion, the delightfully skewed Atlanta Chamber trio. “We’ve never recorded,” she says in a breathy tone of the trio.
Obscura made her solo debut at DragonCon recently, and fan reaction has been very favorable. She also periodically publishes her magazine, Nyx Obscura, a collection of her drawings and stories. Interested readers can get a free copy with every CD purchased through her website (www.dianaobscura.com). In addition, the busy artist performs with members of the Changelings and has toured with former Swans vocalist Jarboe.
“I will make an audience pay attention,” Obscura says, referring to her theatrical, costume-filled shows. “My songs are very literary, with a definite story being told. Often I just receive; they are written through me,” she continues, “like on an Etch-A-Sketch.”