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. Read more on Last.fm.

Two years after the world formally met her via her acclaimed debut, Bring Me the Workhorse, Brooklyn, NY’s My Brightest Diamond – spearheaded by Shara Worden – has been established as one of independent music’s most vibrant, creative and original voices. And with A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, Diamond’s incredible, breathtaking sophomore release, we are all instantly reminded once more of Shara Worden’s undeniable greatness. 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. Moving across the country every few years, singer/songwriter/arranger, Shara honed an eclectic musical taste, a degree in opera, a penchant for costumes, and a few years tutelage under composer Padma Newsome (Clogs/The National). After playing in Sufjan Stevens’ band, My Brightest Diamond struck out on her own, releasing Bring Me the Workhorse to widespread praise. Months of touring commenced, leading Diamond to share the stage with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, The National, St. Vincent, Devotchka and more. These diverse experiences helped shape A Thousand Shark’s Teeth. Originally meant to be a more classical, string quartet affair, the work slowly evolved and refined itself over a period of six years. The record, 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 Parke Harrison, 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,” perhaps one of the finest songs Shara Worden has ever written, 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. Read more on Last.fm.

All Things Will Unwind is the third, stunning offer from Detroit based experimental pop chanteuse-My Brightest Diamond, aka Shara Worden. Known for her many colloborations with indie rock royalty as well as her extraordinary original material, Worden is coming into her own as an artist and human on this 11 song recording. At once accessible and intelligent, the songs were written exclusively for celebrated chamber ensemble yMusic (Bon Iver, Antony & the Johnsons, The New York Philharmonic & Rufus Wainwright) and they are featured on each track. Grammy award-winning Pat Dillet recorded Unwind in New York City. “We Added it Up” opens the record with a punchy, almost Ragtime acoustic guitar, suggesting Cabaret by way of Carolina. Worden’s voice, ever mesmerizing, dances between the notes in a clever narrative of love’s opposites, then joins a rousing call and response chorus on the song’s finale. The range of influences on All Things Will Unwind are as eclectic as its’ author, but listeners will recognize hints of Roberta Flack, Regina Specktor, Edith Piaf and Antony & The Johnsons throughout the album. Inspired by becoming a mother, chats with legendary performance artist Laurie Anderson, presidential addresses, and class warfare, Worden is metabolizing her influences as only she can- with playful, profound originality. "All Things Will Unwind" is a picture of an artist maturing; considering joy and pain, beauty and horror, yet bravely standing in the tension between the two- and singing about it. Since recording My Brightest Diamond’s critically acclaimed sophomore album A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, Shara has returned to Detroit, where she grew up in a family of musical evangelists. She is drawing inspiration from the motor city’s unique struggles. On “High Low Middle” Worden takes us to the center of Detroit’s unemployment crisis, in a catchy, vaudevillian protest song that would make Woodie Guthrie proud: Righteous heathen Blinded and seein You’re next you’re before You’re pompous you are poor Your hungry yet strangely your working like crazy All Things Will Unwind is a picture of an artist maturing; considering joy and pain, beauty and horror, yet bravely standing in the tension between the two- and singing about it. The record closes with “I Have Never Loved Someone” and finds Shara dipping into her soothing alto, singing to her newborn son; the pedals of the pump organ creak under the vocal, evoking visions of a cradle gently rocking: I have never loved someone the way I love you I have never seen a smile like yours And if you grow up to be king or clown or pauper, I will say you are my favorite one in town Yet even in a lullaby, one that could easily be a classic, Shara is still Shara: And when I grow to be a poppy in the graveyard I will send you all my love upon the breeze And if the breeze won’t blow your way …I will find some other way to tell you, you’re ok She closes the album repeating you’re ok, against the swell of an angelic choir, assuring her son, herself, and the listener- in this world of opposites “ok” – like this remarkable album-is a well-earned triumph. My Brightest Diamond's "All Things Will Unwind" (due 18 Oct 2011, Asthmatic Kitty), with tracks: 1 "We Added It Up" 2 "Reaching Through to the Other Side" 3 "In the Beginning" 4 "Escape Routes" 5 "Be Brave" 6 "She Does Not Brave the War" 7 "Ding Dang" 8 "There's a Rat" 9 "High Low Middle" 10 "Everything Is in Line" 11 "I Have Never Loved Someone" Read more on Last.fm.