Shark Remixes Vol. 1- Alfred Brown

Release Date: October 28th, 2008
Itunes release: HERE
(a physical release of all three EPs will be released in 2009)

My Brightest Diamond’s debut Bring Me the Workhorse (2006) was given the remix treatment in the form of a remix compilation entitled Tear It Down (2007).  This collection is evidence to the strength of her compositions and voice, as remixed by such artists as Murcof, Alias, Lusine, Golden Chains among others.  While Asthmatic Kitty and My Brightest Diamond had no regrets about the Tear It Down project, when the time came to talk remixes for A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, they both realized a need for a more cohesive and conceptual project. They brought on three remixers (Alfred Brown, DM Stith, and Son Lux) and commisioned them to each create a separate EP of remixed material. The first of these EPs is by Alfred Brown.

Alfred Brown loves little sounds. He is easily sidetracked for ten or fifteen minutes tapping on a desktop, listening to the tonal qualities.  Raised in the small town Hoosick Falls, NY surrounded by farms, Alfred Brown started playing saxophone in 5th grade and played in the school band up until 11th grade.  From playing the national anthem with the community band in the town’s park gazeebo, to channeling his early teen angst via the guitar mostly punk music and lisa loeb, Alfred Brown finally decided to pursue music and composition.  He began to find resonance with composers such as Anton Webern, Edgar Varez, John Cage, and Pierre Boulez.  These composers and his study of composition changed the way he heard music. Music became organized sound.  It was around this time that Brown began recording unperformable recordings, which started as importing any soundclip that happened to be on the computer and deconstructing it through computer editing software into an unrecognizable form.

“To me this piece is about dichotomies; about the relationship between what is outside of us and what is inside of us; about the deep calling to the deep…It is about fear and wonder.” - Alfred Brown

Drawing inspiration from My Brightest Diamond’s many references to the heavens, Alfred Brown developed a narrative to guide the composition process of his remixes.  The stunning result is a cinematic and textural avant-classical deconstruction of the My Brightest Diamond’s A Thousand Shark’s Teeth. Instead of a straight ahead approach to remixing a single song, Alfred combined parts from different songs, juxtaposing new elements to give the preexisting material new meaning.  The guiding narrative is about an astronaut stranded outside of his ship while working in Low Earth Orbit.  As he descends toward earth he is completely cut off from all communication with Earth and finds himself totally alone.  During this time of complete isolation he thinks about his loved ones back on Earth, about his life, about God, and about dying.  The remixes narrate, through words and music, these contemplations being sent out across the universe; and the echoes that come back.

I.

1. Overture

2. A Thousand Stars Against a Dark Sky

3. In Vacuum

4. black!Black!BLACK!

II.

5. Of Fear and Wonder (I Found a Universe)

6. I’m Never Letting Go (Stars at Elbow and Foot)

7. The Lonliest Man In History (Looking Down from the Top of the World)

8. You Are Now Untouchable (Esto Perpetue)

From the Top of the World single, plus free download

From the Top of the World EP
Cover art by David Stith
Release date: Sept. 23, 2008
iTunes exclusive: $3.96

While Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond retains a French vocabulary more comparable to that of an African Grey Parrot than to Victor Hugo, she does love to sing French songs from the 1930s. Borrowed melodies from Worden’s favorite French sparrow, the inimitable Edith Piaf, “Adieu mon Coeur,” and “Hymne A L’Amour” have become standard concert repertoire for My Brightest Diamond in recent years.

After having fled Germany to escape the Nazi’s in 1933, composer Kurt Weill penned the music for “Youkali:Tango Habenera”. Years later, Roger Fernay added lyrics describing a vagabond trip to an island of bliss called Youkali, whereupon landing a fairy would act as one’s personal tour guide. Youkali is a land of happiness and fulfilled desire, a place where all the stars shine brighter. But the dreamy mists dissipate in the second verse, as life progresses only tediously while poor human souls seek to escape to the mysterious utopia in vain.

With the help of co-producer / ear candy man Zac Rae, a longstanding Diamond collaborator, these recordings take new flight with his host of reversed pianos, paint can snares, and warbling theramins.

1. From the Top of the World
2. Youkali: Tango Habanera
3. Hymne Á L’Amour
4. Adieu Mon Coeur

Listen to an exclusive acoustic version of “Adieu mon Coeur”, then download for freeee while you read an interview with Shara on Stereogum.

A Thousand Shark’s Teeth

US release date: June 17, 2008
International release date: June 2, 2008

Charming, playful, daring, foreboding, graceful, eclectic, exciting and visceral: these are all the first words that come to mind after a full listen through A Thousand Shark’s Teeth. It is a record that evokes and challenges, full of the sorts of melodies and arrangements that stay with you long after the album’s stopped playing. Combining songs that were written both before and after the release of Bring Me the Workhorse, and produced and arranged by Shara herself, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth reflects different times, feelings, musical genres and facets of one’s personality, all perfectly sewn together by the powerful thread that is Shara’s dynamic voice.

Originally meant to be a more classical, string quartet affair, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth slowly evolved and refined itself over a period of six years. The record, which was mixed by Husky Höskulds (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), was recorded in Berlin, Los Angeles and New York City, and features twenty different players all contributing little bits of musical magic. Influenced by artists such as Tricky, French composer Maurice Ravel and Tom Waits, in addition to the star exploration themes of Anslem Kiefer’s paintings, the imaginary landscapes of photographer Robert ParkeHarrison, films by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Alice in Wonderland, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth is a musical snowglobe that sparkles each time you touch it. The songs, whose themes broach intimacy, kisses by moonlight, laundry, lost friendship and more, marry vast instrumentation - marimbas, harps, clarinets, French horns, rabid guitars, vibraphones to name a few - to create an unequaled amalgamation of style and color. In simple terms: it’s beautiful, and there’s nothing else quite like it.

Opener and first single “Inside A Boy” is classic Diamond - slippery guitars meet with gorgeous strings and Shara’s powerhouse voice, which folds nicely into “Ice and the Storm,” a driving foot-stomp of a tune full of swirling vocals, metallic crackles and a stuttering beat. “Black and Costaud” borrows lyrics from a Ravel opera and sees Diamond full of dramatic flourish, while “From the Top of the World” vibrates with soulful swagger, showing off Shara’s tremendous guitar playing. “Apples” is Diamond at her most coy, her vocal line delivered with quite a flirtatious smile, “Like a Sieve” twists a Tricky sample upside down, and “Goodbye Forever” swells with a string-heavy chorus as Shara sings of things lost in a fire, literally and figuratively, exploring both beauty and danger in a shark’s kiss.

The tracklisting:

1. Inside A Boy
2. Ice and the Storm
3. If I Were Queen
4. Apples
5. From the Top of the World
6. Black and Costaud
7. To Pluto’s Moon
8. Bass Player
9. Goodbye Forever
10. Like a Sieve
11. The Diamond

Lyrics:

INSIDE A BOY

inside a boy i found a universe
and in his eyes are a thousand stars on a dark sky
we are clouds we are whispers like fauns and shapeshifters
our edges can never be found out
our edges keep moving further out

we are stars colliding
now we crash like lightening into love

in his arms im unwinding
under his kiss i am falling into love

we are stars colliding
now we crash like lightening into love

THE ICE AND THE STORM

open up your heart to me
darling you’re resisting this bliss
you’ve been dreaming only of it

it’s just like ice building up inside
darling we’ve accumulated too much miscommunication
in a beginning everything is soft not defensive
perhaps we begin again shyly
i wanna love you loosely
so nothing is stopping me from receiving from giving out

i want a storm to blow it out
i want to shake myself and turn my heart inside out

open up your heart to me now
darling you’re resisting this bliss
you’ve been dreaming only of it

i want a storm to blow it out
i want to shake myself and turn my heart inside out

don’t you want to let it go

IF I WERE QUEEN

if i were queen then you and i’d be neighbors
i’d pick you up each morning for doughnuts and tea
ah close by
ah close by

if i were queen then you and i’d be neighbors
we’d collect things and we could argue where to put them
ah close by
ah close by

APPLES

sometimes in the springtime
i like to see the apple blossoms with you
sometimes in the winter
i like to see the snow falling with you

once we took apples from my grandfather’s tree
but i had nowhere to plant the seed
so we baked them with sugar and we ate them

sometimes on saturdays when it’s raining we do laundry
especially then i like to watch you fold so carefully the clothes
especially then i like to watch you move your fingers slow

FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD

at the end of the sea there waits my wind to carry me
through storms we will sail just to gaze at the top of the world

from the bottom of the world we looked up and saw the moon
and gazing at it then we fell in love

so we made up our minds to arrive smiling yes
we made up our minds to touch the height of life
and find out what we felt for it
how we felt for it

from the top of the world we looked up and saw the sun
and gazing at it then we fell in love

BLACK AND COSTAUD

black and costaud black and chic
jolly fellow jolly fellow black
i punch sir
i boxe you

black and costaud black and chic black black black
black and thick and vrai beau gosse
i punch your nose
i knock you out you stupid chose
i punch your nose
i marm’lad you you stupid chose stupid chose

avec ma voix je marm’lad toi
je marm’lad toi

oh black and costaud
oh i punch your nose
oh black and costaud
oh stupid chose

TO PLUTO’S MOON

how i tried to catch you while you ran ahead of me
i lassoed mars to see if you were hiding there
but you’d already ran past jupiter to pluto’s moon
and my rope won’t reach that moon

this is a state of electrical shock
you were so beautiful i thought you’d last forever
but you came and you went when the lights went out
you went like you came
in a light’ning bolt

why did you go like this
i slam against the wall
it’s crushing my skull
why did you go like this
i slam against the wall of permanence

and like a ghost i am spinning
in circles the dance of pluto’s moon

BASS PLAYER

bass player all alone
makes a sound most wouldn’t call a symphony
as he plays thinks of maid sad and shuffling

she sings blow me a kiss before i drown in sorrow
blow me a kiss before i drown

he saw her by the moon
dress in hand her hips were swayin’
melancholy tune broken buckles tired lips

she was singing
blow me a kiss before i drown in sorrow
blow me a kiss before i drown in laundry

she said i want to be with the stars tonight so i can fly above the laundry

GOODBYE FOREVER

oh to lose by fire by flame this old feeling
insignificance

then i can hear you brighter than the stars
your voice is a razor blade
i can see you shining through the sun
you’re so mysterious

lose the hold as i throw this with a goodbye forever
fear of exposure

then i can hear you brighter than the stars
your touch is light’ning
i can feel you prickling like a thousand shark teeth
prickling like a thousand shark teeth closer to me

come closer to me
come closer to me
come closer to me
come closer to me still

LIKE A SIEVE

i rest my head on water
i slip under

i descend into the deep
past the rushes, past the shipwrecks
into my tears i float

and like a sieve i’m catching leaves and sticks
i’m catching planks and fishes
so it washes through me clean
i’m run clean through
ah!

THE DIAMOND

you are the brightest diamond
i can see you shining for miles and miles and miles and miles
everybody here’s wearing long faces but you

and mary wants to hold your face and kiss you for her birthday
are you coming?
i can see you shining
i can see you shining

you are the brightest diamond hidden in my pocket
oh how glorious you must feel splendid
you must feel splendid

but you have spit out beauty like an idiot
why did you chew up shinies with a paper shredder

you are the brightest diamond hidden on my wrist
you are now untouchable
now untouchable
now untouchable

reaching through the space between your universe and mine a warm light shines
and will until all breath and sigh expend

expend

expend

Shark Demos

A pre-order for A Thousand Shark’s Teeth is now up at Secretly Canadian, featuring a bonus EP for anyone who orders the album this way. This bonus EP is a fully realized collection of alternate versions of A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, in addition to one album outtake. Orchestrated and complex, yet spacious and direct, these versions are a rewarding listen for the opportunity to hear how the songs have grown into their final form. Link to PREORDER.
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Tracklisting for A Thousand Shark’s Teeth Bonus EP:

1. Apples (alternate version)
2. Bass Player (alternate version)
3. To Pluto’s Moon (alternate version)
4. If I Were Queen (alternate version)
5. The Diamond (alternate version)
6. Music Box (outtake)

Inside a Boy | Single

Digital EP - Release Date: May 6, 2008

My Brightest Diamond releases the first single from A Thousand Shark’s Teeth with “Inside a Boy.” The release includes the original track, a beatbox-driven fantasy rock b-side called “I Had a Pearl,” and remixes of two tracks.

Tracklisting for “Inside A Boy” digital single:
1. Inside A Boy (album version)
2. I Had A Pearl
3. Black and Costaud - Tim Fite redux
4. Inside A Boy - Son Lux remix

Listen to “Inside a Boy” on MySpace or purchase on iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, etc.
Download SonLux remix at pitchforky.

I Had A Pearl Lyrics:
Many strange things did I behold
I had the favor a queen and watched it turn to stone
I’ve kissed the lips of princes, fools and dreams
I walked a tightrope through the moonlight to the seven seas
I’ve seen silver headed Valentine
I carried up the swan kings gold and gave them thimble wine
I saw the old man time glisten before the end
I went down disappearing hole was never seen again

I had a pearl and I lost it
I knew the bliss of the dawn and it faded
I saw her face turn away
and now I know that there is nothing so hard
I can’t get over it

On eleven o two I sailed a red hot balloon
to the snow capped mountains of Timorataloo
And when the owl stole my air for his last tune
I floated up to Pluto on a beam of the moon

I had a pearl and I lost it
I knew the bliss of the dawn and it faded
I saw her face turn away
and now I know that there is nothing so high
I can’t get over it

I Had a Pearl credits:
programming- SonLux
bass drum- James McAlister
beatboxing- Adam Matta
bass, guzheng- Nathan Lithgow
clarinet, bass clarinet- Sebastian Krueger
piano, organ and vocals- Shara Worden
toys- Sxip Shirey

engineered by Shara Worden
Produced by Shara Worden and Son Lux

Video: 

Misfits, Orphans and Hooligans

EXTRAS! live, unofficial, unreleased, unfettered, unfocused- it’s all right here.

WNYC: April 9, 2008. LISTEN
From the Top of the World | Apples
Shara Worden: vocals, guitar, kalimba
Rob Moose: violin
Olivier Manchon: violin
Hiroko Taguchi: viola
Maria Jeffers: cello

Playin’ around: October 24, 2007. LISTEN
Rock n Roll Will Never Die
Shara learns to use idrum and a casio keyboard.

Daytrotter: August 25, 2007. LISTEN
Shara reads from a collection of thoughts and stories by photographer Diane Arbus.

Huey Lewis Compilation: July 25, 2007. LISTEN
Naturally
Album to be released sometime in ‘08.
Performed with
Sebastian Krueger: Bass Clarinet.
Marla Hansen: Viola bumble bees.
Nathan Lithgow: Bass

Stereogum: July 12, 2007. LISTEN
Lucky
Performed with
Alfred Brown: Texture.
Sebastian Krueger: Bass Clarinet.
Marla Hansen: Viola.
Nathan Lithgow: Bass.
Ryan Lott: Mastering.

Liberated Matter: April 10, 2007. LISTEN
Hi, Remember Me?
MBD is featured on Cross-Pollination: The Mixtape Vol. 1

WOXY: April 5, 2007. LISTEN
Golden Star | Freak Out
Solo performance. Includes interview.

Daytrotter: February 10, 2007. LISTEN
Magic Rabbit | Something of an End | Freak Out | Gone Away
Performance with
Joel Shearer: guitar.
Zac Rae: guitar, keys.
Blair Sinta: drums.
Joseph Karnes: bass.
Hella Fabulous: freak outs.

KCRW: March 14, 2007. LISTEN
Feelin’ Good | Something of an End | Dragonfly. Youkali | The Good and The Bad Guy
Solo performance. Includes interview by Chris Douridas.

Minneapolis: November 30, 2006. LISTEN
Something of an End | Gone Away | Feelin’ Good
Solo performance. Includes interview with Shara.

WFMU: September 18, 2006. LISTEN
Golden Star | The Good and the Bad Guy | We Were Sparkling | Robin’s Jar
Includes interview with Shara and Marla.
Performance with
Rob Moose: violin
Marla Hansen: viola
Nathan Lithgow: bass
Sebastian Kruger: guitar

KVRX: September 16, 2006. LISTEN
Disappear | Golden Star | Dragonfly
Performance with
Rob Moose: violin
Olivier Manchon: violin
Marla Hansen: viola
Maria Jeffers: cello

Jedi Mind Tricks Collaboration: September 5, 2006. LISTEN
Razorblade Salvation

NPR: July 11, 2006. LISTEN
Golden Star | We Were Sparkling
Includes interview by John Schaefer with Shara.
Performance with
Yuko Naito: violin
Marla Hansen: viola
Maria Jeffers: cello
Sebastian Krueger: guitar

Indie-Eye: Summer 2006. LISTEN
Dragonfly | Golden Star | The Good and The Bad Guy | If I Could Say One Thing
Solo performance. Includes interview with Shara.

French Radio: June 14, 2006. LISTEN
Something of an End | Golden Star | Je n’en connais pas la fin/L’hymne a l’amour | Feelin’ Good | Dragonfly | Robin’s Jar
Solo Performance.

Asthmatic Kitty, February 7th, 2006. LISTEN
Riding Horses
MBD is featured on Mews Too: An Asthmatic Kitty Compilation.

Before there was My Brightest Diamond, there was Awry.

Purchase ONLINE

For more info on Awry go HERE or visit myspace.

Tear It Down

My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden has decided to set loose her bobby pins and let her hair fly on the ambient dance floor. Her latest semi-collaboration with 13 different remixers, entitled Tear It Down, reworks songs from the highly acclaimed album, Bring Me The Workhorse featuring tracks by Alias, Lusine, Murcof, Stakka and Gold Chains. Oh, it’s international too! With diplomatic representatives from Belgium, France, Mexico, The UK and America (East and West Coasts baby!), the remixes range from drum-n-bass, to glitchy ambient, minimalism, and get-your-booty-on-the-dance-floor club music.

The wonders of the internet abound and as evidence of the modern times, where being in the same room with someone is no longer necessary for collaboration, the relationships to the remixers vary from being friends, to fans, to MySpace finds. Via the internet, tracks floated through the sky like Willy Wonka’s tv converter and landed in bedrooms and studios with wonderful result. Having crafted songs for five years, meticulously deliberated over string arrangements for two years, flying coast to coast for mixing and recording sessions, and generally laboring over every aspect of Bring Me The Workhorse, Shara was ready to hand over the reins and see what the songs could do without any of her guidance.

Tear It Down stands on it’s own horsie legs. In comparison to Shara’s control in the songs of Bring Me The Workhorse, these electronic horsetrainers loosen up the forms and smooth over some of the rougher emotional outbursts. Many of the remixers adhere to the original song forms, snazzing them up or stripping them down, and there are also examples of djs excerpting the tracks to create something entirely new and not song form related, focusing on one element and elaborating, rather than being bound to the storytelling. Shara says, “The variety of their approaches made this project exhiliratingly unpredictable!”

The album opens with indie beloved Anticon artist, Alias, rocking his version of “Golden Star”. While the song form is the same, we hardly recognize it. Gone are the angry guitar rumblings and welcomed in are beautiful electronic twinkles and killer kick drums. While on tour in Seattle, Ghostly artist Lusine came to shake Shara’s hand from the stage. Now she knows what he looks like. His rolling, moody, sexy version of “Workhorse” employs vibraphone, major chords and soaring strings, finding its home at track two on the album. Gold Chains’ remix nabbed the title track trophy with his club reconstruction of “Freak Out”. “It’s time to tear it down” and she did and he did and you will. Having featured English DJ/producer Stakka’s remix on the single for “Disappear”, we are still enjoying its dramatic trapeze act drum beat. Like a secret mission, Shara went to Stakka’s Brooklyn apartment, slipping the split tracks through his mail slot. A week later, the amazing 16-bit version landed on her proverbial email doorstep. Still they have never met. Will they ever? Eyebrows raised.

That mysterious and haunting male voice from the album version of “Magic Rabbit” appears again, but this time in the Scott Walker-esque remix of “Gone Away”. Who is that masked, multi-talented man? Also known for his subconsious drawings on Bring Me The Workhorse, David Stith emerges subtley. The clamor and noise seem to hush in the quiet suspension of his gorgeous and icey remix. The backstory begins in the summer of 2004 which found Shara recording demos in a Brooklyn basement converted into museum, The Museum of Disembodied Folk Art. In the next room lived David Stith who would creep out during cookie and milk breaks and he and Shara would discuss music, art, life and the Starbucks coffee uniform. David moved away momentarily but Shara kept snooping around his diggs, borrowing microphones, triangle beaters and getting him to sing, draw and remix on projects for her! Cheers to more collabs between friends! Speaking of friends, Mr. Stith made a mix cd of some electronic favs to help Shara research remixers and a mix by Mr. Stith’s pal, Alfred Brown was nestled there. Shara heard his music and loved and then wrote to Mr. Brown for his minimalistic touch.

MySpace can be a beautiful way of finding people, when it’s working and not slow as Christmas. That’s how Shara found the Belgian electronic beauty of Haruki. With what looked like a bird on wallpaper, Shara was drawn in by the id photo and began listening. With a delicate hand, Haruki preserves the song “Sparkling” while opening it up to shiny glitchy electronic worlds reaching beyond the organic.

If you recognized the sounds of DJ Kenny M and David Keith a.k.a. NC47, it might be because you heard the Awry Remix EP! Before there was My Brightest Diamond, there was the band Awry, a collaboration between Shara and guitarist Shane Yarbrough. Awry made two full length records and released a short remix EP, so it seemed only natural to have some of the old school djs represented on the MBD remix album. Local Brookynite, DJ Kenny M makes us move to the dance floor with his drum-n-bass version of “Freak Out” that might just possibly maybe, but we aren’t sure, reference “Le Freak, C’est Chic”. The vibey groove of David Keith’s “Something of an End”, highlights those original buried string tracks, and gives chilling isolation to the line “beautiful and terrible”, but this interpretation makes you feel less like the world is coming to end and more like you know everything is going to be okay. Sounds Are Active artist, Siamese Sisters bring their own magic production, scrambling the text of “The Good and The Bad Guy”. What is she saying? She wants to be the bad guy now? My how things change!

When Shara contacted the French group Strings of Consciousness about doing a remix, what intrigued her was that the four piece band composes together and performs their music live. However with deadlines quickly approaching, Strings of Consciousness decided that their group methods would be too slow if they were to do a traditional remix, so they emailed an already finished track for Shara to sing a new vocal over. The instrumental seemed perfect for the song “Gone Away” so Shara tapped into her trip-hop vein and delivered a new smoky version of those meloncholy lines “Far away you’ve gone and left me here” as if at once in a trance, then wailing despairingly the last “Goodbye”. After all that, there’s a celebration of deconstruction with Wheat and Cedar AV’s ripped apart version of “Disappear”. Delicate yet explosive it pronounces once again how “we aren’t meant to stay here very long”.

1. Alias - “Golden Star”
2. Lusine - “Workhorse”
3. Gold Chains - “Freak Out (Panique mix)”
4. Stakka - “Disappear”
5. Murcof - “Dragonfly”
6. Alfred Brown - “Magic Rabbit”
7. DJ Kenny Mitchell [ft. Nimnomadic] - “Freak Out (REWIND 93 REMIX)”
8. Haruki - “We Were Sparkling”
9. David Keith - “Something of an End”
10. David Michael Stith - “Gone Away”
11. Siamese Sisters - “The Good and the Bad Guy”
12. Strings of Consciousness - “Gone Away”
13. Cedar AV - “Disappear (Wheat to Whiskey mix)”

Disappear | Single

iTunes Exclusive EP - Release Date: December 5, 2006

My Brightest Diamond is a band that sounds unlike any other, a magical tour de force that casts a potent spell over all who hear her songs. From Shara Worden’s incredible, powerful pipes, to her edgy guitar, to her luminous arrangements of strings and bells, My Brightest Diamond is an artist whose songs overwhelm with grandeur. Her debut, Bring Me the Workhorse, out now on Asthmatic Kitty, won dazzling accolades; her live show has won her even more. In the midst of heavy touring, My Brightest Diamond and Asthmatic Kitty are releasing an iTunes-only exclusive EP for the very fans who have been heralding her astounding music for the past few months. The EP, which will be available through iTunes on December 5th, 2006 and will feature album track “Disappear,” in addition a previously unheard b-side called “The Lace Handkerchief,” an alternate recording of “Disappear,” and remixes of the song by Stakka and James McAlister.

Shara first met James McAlister in San Diego, California in the summer of 2004. Both had been shipped in to rehearse for Sufjan Stevens’ Michigan Militia band. Shara and James hit it off instantly, since one of the many places that Shara lived, was in Oklahoma, near James’ hometown. She understood all his Okie jokes and they shared a love for actress Madeline Kahn, drummer James Gatson and double lattes. James also played drums as part of My Brightest Diamond in tours both in Europe and the US, so it seemed only natural that James should try his rhythm section hand at a remix when the opportunity arose!

That same summer of 2004, on a hot New York City August day, the My Brightest Diamond string quartet met in violist, Marla Hansen’s upper west side apartment to record. With no air condition, sidewalk noise from a taping of Law and Order six flights down, and traffic sounds from the George Washington Bridge, windows were blanketed up, living room armchairs were moved and My Brightest Diamond began recording. If you listen really hard, you will probably hear a city bus hidden in the track! Violinist Rob Moose and Julie Carney played tag while improvising the verse sound affects and everyone struck up a chord for the chorus to create a much more intimate version of “Disappear” than is heard on the album full length version. This recording was made for what was then thought to be a double album with Bring Me The Workhorse entitled A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, but the string quartet version lost it’s home when it got kicked off of Shark’s. It finally found it’s home here on the single and we think it’s much happier now.

Shara’s friend/poet/musician/actor Sage seems to be the matches that light many a fire. Sage set up Shara’s first New York show at the Pink Pony, introduced her to Sufjan Stevens at his variety show, The Medicine Show and now sparked her collaboration with English DJ/Producer Stakka. As evidence of the modern age, Shara and Stakka have never met though they both live in Brooklyn. Like a secret mission, Shara dropped off a cd of the split tracks through Stakka’s mail slot and via the internet Stakka’s amazing 16 bit version showed up on her proverbial email doorstep a week later. Will they ever meet face to face? That is the real post modern question.

“The Lace Handkerchief” was recorded in August 2006 in Joel Shearer’s LA rehearsal studio. Shara was recording some of the vocals for an upcoming project and found Joel’s calimba and wrote the song quickly as a smoke break.

1. Disappear (LP Version)
2. The Lace Handkerchief
3. Disappear (String Quartet Version)
4. Disappear (Remix by Stakka)
5. Disappear (Remix by James McAlister)

Bring Me The Workhorse

Bring Me The Workhorse courageously gathers all the essential elements of classical and pop to create an album that breaks down the barriers of both worlds. These songs are simultaneously gentle and urgent, evoking moments of tremendous joy and sorrow with the magnitude of Italian opera and the modesty of a Japanese haiku.

Under Shara’s gaze, ordinary objects begin to have supernatural meanings. A robin’s nest, a grocery list, a glass bottle come to represent love, mortality, and the overwhelming need to “freak out” every once in a while. Shara is not afraid to use superlatives. But she also considers the benefits of self-control. This is most evident in the carefulness of her arrangements. Earthy drums and bass guitar are augmented by celeste, music boxes, prepared piano, and a string quartet; each song is scrupulously composed and arranged by Shara herself.

Shara’s songwriting reconciles the high art of opera with the low-brow of the folk song by compounding them into a form that is both as sublime as it is pragmatic. The music is set in transcendent landscapes familiar to Wagner’s operas, but it is also planted firmly in the materials of everyday life: dirt, tree branches, bird feathers and thrown away charms. Strings and chimes beckon mysterious apparitions, but Shara’s tone of voice is dead serious.

Almost every song pivots around a moment of crisis, distilling stories to their most distressing points of contact: a phone call, an injured horse, a dragonfly caught in a spider’s web. Shara doesn’t share all the information — just the stuff that matters. The effect is a sensational compression of time, in which an entire event is summarized in a single note. This, of course, is the essence of opera. But My Brightest Diamond is much more than musical theater.

1. Something of an End
2. Golden Star
3. Gone Away|
4. Dragonfly
5. Freak Out
6. We Were Sparkling
7. Disappear
8. The Robin’s Jar
9. Magic Rabbit
10. The Good & The Bad Guy
11. Workhorse