photo by Sufjan Stevens
My Brightest Diamond refuses to take herself too seriously
By Claire Ashton
Published: June 17th, 2008 | 9:25am
Lewis Carroll has nothing on Shara Worden — the experimental mastermind driving My Brightest Diamond. The classically trained opera singer — and protégé of Australian composer Padma Newsome — is the mad scientist–composer and author-extraordinaire behind a new form of hybrid rock that is skillfully crafted, sparse, beautifully moody, and encapsulates the adolescent spirit and rare moments of human transcendence.
A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, My Brightest Diamond’s sophomore release, exposes Worden at her creative peak — as she dares to push Edith Piaf and Henry Mancini down the rabbit hole alongside Alice. The album’s 11 string-laden songs — teaming with indie-cabaret flair — were written during a six-year period, which challenged her “to figure out how everything would hold together.” The self-proclaimed Portishead junkie breaks down the process of making her new album cohesive. “I had five tunes that had stars in the lyrics — and that wasn’t a conscious thing in the beginning,” she says. “So I started to think about that and wrote the last couple [of tracks], and then I started to see the threads.”
With her laptop in tow, the globe-trotting gypsy — who earned a production credit for the latest My Brightest Diamond effort — tracked drums in Berlin, arranged and recorded strings in New York, and then hit the West Coast to work with her “L.A. boys — the ones that make the freaky noises.” For Worden, each of these cities encapsulates a different facet of the music.
Daughter of a National Accordion Champion and a classical organist, the front woman started performing at age 5 and “just sort of never stopped.” She released a solo album followed by two albums with her now defunct band Awry. “I was at this point where I was building a new musical identity and figuring out what that would look like,” she reminisces.
During this transition period, Worden met musician Sufjan Stevens at Lower East Side hangout Arlene’s Grocery. “Sufjan was going out to support his Michigan record and said, ‘Hey, you want to go out on this tour?’” recalls Worden. She joined the show, contributing a quirky brand of performance art as one of Stevens’ notorious Illinoisemakers. The relationship led to “more work and a longer musical connection with each other,” Worden says. “I would come home and work on my own stuff throughout that time, too.” Given that their professional relationship developed as such “a really natural thing,” it’s a no-brainer that My Brightest Diamond eventually found a home on Stevens’ label, Asthmatic Kitty.
Shark’s Teeth breathtakingly pits classical chamber elements against seductive, modern operatic goth-pop, exposing what Worden calls “different songs for different spaces.” She enlisted the help of more than 20 musicians who contributed — among other instruments — marimbas, harp, horns, and strings — presenting a basic “outline” for them to use to “fill in the colors.” Worden readily admits to sidestepping her college degree in opera and casting her classical training aside when conceptualizing her own material. “When I am actually writing a tune, I am trying to get a certain feeling across or I am wrestling with an emotion or event and trying to unpack,” says the Brooklyn-based songstress. “I am not really engaging in that left brain.”
If history repeats itself, My Brightest Diamond’s spring 2008 tour in support of Shark’s Teeth should log as many hours abroad as it will in the States for the eclectic act that has encountered no difficulty crossing the pond. “It’s a gift to be able to play in so many countries because each audience has their own way of listening,” Worden says.
Worden says that some audiences are “very direct about the silence that they give you” while others are very chatty. “Every room is a collection of different people, and something new and exciting is going to happen because of the people that showed up,” Worden says. “You just have to keep giving and not over-analyze.”
The songwriter, composer, and performing artist — who recently created vocals for a cartoon bunny in Tom Eaton’s animated short Don’t Smash — encourages aspiring musicians to “keep making art,” which is exactly what she intends to do. With new post-release projects on the horizon, the wheels are already turning for the quirky visionary who is pushing stylized music to the extreme.
“I am working on a duet with the U.K. band Stateless. It’s going to be a Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton kind of thing but sort of in the Jeff Buckley–“Hallelujah” vibe,” chuckles the genre-fusing indie-experimentalist as her traditional roots creep into the picture. “How can you not reference Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers when it comes to duets?”
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My Brightest Diamond Web site
My Brightest Diamond Myspace
“Magic Rabbit” music video
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