As the singer-songwriter and multi-intrumentalist behind My Brightest Diamond, Shara Worden has earned her reputation as a composer of popular songs with a chamber-music intimacy. The emotional intimacy of This Is My Hand, the new My Brightest Diamond LP, and None More than You, a companion EP coming out this summer, are unmistakable, but this latest iteration of the My Brightest Diamond project has opened the project up to vast new sonic possibilities.
My Brightest Diamond’s musical metamorphosis comes straight out of recent, radical transformations in Worden’s life as an artist. The songwriting on these records draw as much on top-40 pop as by Worden’s experiences in the cast of an experimental Matthew Barney film, in surprisingly direct and literal ways: the Walt Whitman poem that provides the words to None More than You’s “Whoever You Are” and the marching band–style arrangement of This Is My Hand’s “Pressure” were both inspired by elements in Barney’s The River of Fundament, but their dance-floor friendly tempo and singalong structure are borne out of Worden’s analytical thinking as a composer, mathematically breaking down her favorite radio hits.
But My Brightest Diamond still sounds like nothing else so much as My Brightest Diamond, refracting all of these influences through Worden’s inimitable, shamanic sense of artistry, and her equally inimitable singing voice.
Hear “Pressure” right now on NPR’s All Songs Considered here, or below.
None More than You, out July 15th, can be preordered from a strictly limited edition of 1000 records on lavender vinyl here, and preorders of the limited, translucent red vinyl edition of This Is My Hand come with “Pressure” as an instant download. Buy it here.
iTunes offers a preorder of the Prismatic Edition, including the LP, the EP, and an immediate download of “Pressure,” all for $11.99. Get that one here.