The trembling majesty that is Shara Worden, aka My Brightest Diamond, is something you are not ready for. Meeting her takes openness and commitment and it takes muscle and acceptance. It takes following her into troubled geographies, her voice wailing like the wind, sometimes it whistling impossibly, birdishly high. Quirks of noise–Was that a toy piano? Is that humming I hear? What are those drums?–add to the disorienting effect of her mystical lyrics, like the fairy tales of another dimension. Let me liken My Brightest Diamond, then, to Alice in Wonderland: a girl with a dreamy and often eerie story, but whose world is deliciously mesmerizing and, once you believe with her, utterly inescapable.
Beyond the storybook Alice, I hesitate to relate her to any musical kin–not because the reference points are not there, but because they seem reductive. To say she has the intensity of Beth Gibbons, or that she displays more grounded, darkened versions of Joanna Newsom’s idiosyncrasies are both certainly true, but they do not adequately prepare you for the inevitable chill that will follow your spine during the enchantment that is “To Pluto’s Moon.” It is a song that opens as quietly as breathing, building from that nucleus on waves that are equal parts cosmic and orchestral, betraying at once her classical training and her wisdom about the breadth of sound. Its grooving, almost muscular bass lines provide the roots against which her voice is allowed free rein to lilt or grovel. “Why did you go like this?” she sings, and against the passionate music she has created, I want to know, too.
A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (Asthmatic Kitty, 2008), her second album, concentrates the promise of her 2006 release album Bring Me the Workhorse. There are no freak-outs here, not even caged wildness. Instead, you hear and feel control–that of a spinning top that’s furiously turning in the same spot, or a drill that burrowing a deep, narrow cavity right into your mind, your soul, your heart. When it hits you there, for the first time, there’s nothing you could have done to anticipate it.
Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential new music? That’s why we’re here.
The Hold Steady “Stay Positive”
Even though you can’t actually buy it until July 15, the boozy Brooklyn band is streaming their latest albumin its entirety on MySpace. On first listen it reminds us of old Soul Asylum, and we mean that in the best way possible.
Stream: “Stay Positive”
(via The Hold Steady)
Albert Hammond Jr. “You Won’t Be Fooled By This”
This track from the Strokes guitarist’s second solo album makes us want to jump into the kiddie pool with our headphones on.
Jessie Baylin “Was I On Your Mind?”
Scarlett Johansson’s best friend is a singer-songwriter with a smoky voice and graceful delivery that makes us feel the same way we did the first time we heard Emmylou Harris.
(via Girlie Action)
Sebadoh “Soul and Fire (Acoustic Demo)”
Listening to Lou Barlow spill his guts on this scrappy but poignant home demo, lifted from the forthcoming deluxe reissue of Bubble & Scrape, makes us wonder why we ever stopped listening to these ’90s college radio titans.
(via Force Field PR)
Joan As Policewoman “To Be Loved”
Joan Wasser, the former singer of the Dambuilders and Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend at the time of his death, is in a mellow mood on her second solo album To Survive, letting her classical training come to the fore on stately piano ballads like the one below.
MP3: ”To Be Loved”
After luring us in as the sensual voiced siren on Zero 7’s “Home”, Danish singer-songwriter Tina Dico is set to wallop us over the head with the rocking tunes from her latest solo album, Count To Ten. She was recently back in the states for a quick club tour.
Fuzz: You’re best known in America for singing quiet songs with Zero 7. Is Count To Ten a better reflection of what you’re really like?
Tina Dico: I would say so. Like many other artists I always had a fear of sounding too poppy. I always saw myself as quite raw. It feels nearer to the way it all starts with just me and the guitar. It feels like it’s just an extension of that.
Do you remember the record that made you want to be a singer?
From when I was tiny, I remember listening to loads of Donovan, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen–just one person with a guitar. My dad was a hi-fi geek, so we had a music room in the house and he would play loads of varied stuff. He didn’t have good taste, as such–he just liked things that were well recorded. I remember Pink Floyd and some Irish folk music. I played the piano from when I was six and what made me change to the guitar and take songwriting more seriously when I was 10 was Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” She was a present day Bob Dylan. I felt like she was my soul mate. I wanted to sound exactly like her and I tried to learn all her songs on the guitar.
Are you disappointed you sound nothing like Tracy Chapman?
You know what? To begin with, I did. I had exactly the same vibrato as her when I was 13. That was the most important thing in my life. I guess I have moved slightly in a different direction since then.
Were you also planning on becoming a protest singer?
Not necessarily in a political way. I guess the thing is that it sounds like life or death. You can sing, “I miss you,” and make it as big of a statement as a song about war. So it was always about the energy in the voice.
You could be living large in Denmark. Why did you move to London?
I knew from the beginning I wanted an international career. That’s why I sing in English. I really do appreciate the fact that I can blend in here and be completely anonymous. I can’t do that in Denmark. It’s shocking what that does to your life. I can’t actually meet anyone without them having some sort of preconception. Nothing is from scratch, ever. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody thinks they know who I am. That’s a bit weird because my music is melancholic and people think I’m a sad person. I don’t want to be known as the Queen of Melancholy.
Listen:
MP3: Count To Ten.mp3
Watch:
Tina Dico “On the Run”