I suppose what this can be best classified as is high-speed "cantillation", aka Jewish liturgical chanting accompanying texts like the Torah and the Tanakh/Mikra (usually performed at services). Of course, Madeleine Lipszyc's completely improvisational so I'm almost certain that little literary reference is being made here but it's not like it really matters anyway.
Magdalith mainly consists of Lipszyc warbling over at most a single sparse instrument (electric organ, miscellaneous percussion, etc.), varying simply between a lower and higher register often very quickly. Her diction is, for the most part, extremely fast, unintelligible and manic in the most uncomfortable way possible. Kind of like
this. But I mean that is the point of avant-garde music, right? To disorient. Sure, but if you ask me this feels like one of those performances that you're told is
super serious beforehand, and you end up sitting through a 39 minute performance of a woman running around on stage cooing like a bird. You laugh inwardly despite prior warnings, but after 15 minutes of it you just get annoyed and have the urge to walk out. Granted I did have the ability to shut this one off at that time but out of respect for my peers in the a̶u̶d̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ album club I sat through the whole thing.
Absurdity aside there's just little meat on these bones to bite onto. I admire Lipszyc's objective vocal talents, but how she uses them does little to impress me.
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