I recently attended a show featuring my friend / downstairs neighbor, Timothy Dick, at Googies, the new venue on the second floor of the Lower East Side’s famed Living Room. I admit this is a classic case of friend rock (please see Sufjan Stevens’ definition if you need clarification), but the week of the show seemed to mark the end of one era and beginning of another for Timothy. On Monday, his new record, On a Grassblade, arrived in the mail. On Tuesday, we grilled out on the back porch with other artist and musician friends from the neighborhood popping in to watch our rabbits get it on. On Thursday night, he played Googies. Then, on Saturday, he moved upstate with his pregnant wife, son, rabbit and the kitchen sink. So many events for one week! Whew!

I turned up at the show at Googies and it felt like a scene in Big Fish or something, with friends from the circuses of my past among the audience. Those moments make you realize that what you are creating as an artist is not separate from anything else, that you are a part of a larger fabric. One of my favorite painter / installation artists, Anselm Keifer, said, "I found out that an artwork is only partly done by the artist, that the artist is part of a larger state of things – the public, history, memory, personal history – and he must just work to find a way through it all, to remain free but connected at the same time." Here is a picture I took with my camera phone.

The performance was really moving despite our being able to hear the downstairs bar chatter through the plexi-glass wall. Maybe the noise added to the charm… The music began with Timothy’s beautiful ringing baritone voice booming out through small speakers over the sound of the grand piano. He has one of those voices that always makes me feel immediately. It’s really hard to describe, but when I hear an expressive singer sometimes I get a knot in my stomach, and I mean that not in any negative way, but in a
way that’s really physical and that most importantly produces instant feeling. That’s Timothy.

i was born in a robins nest
safe in the softness of her breast
warm in the softness of her breast
but then i fell onto fallow ground
from so high a place my stars came down
my stars came down

He was joined by his wife, Kathy, on harmony and Timmy Gologly on bass and vocals. The blend of their voices was balanced and pitch perfect. Sometimes Timothy switched to a half broken guitar that creaked and balked at being put back in tune. Holding his guitar and singing, he sat behind a bass drum
and tambourine hi-hat and played like a New Orleans street band. He sang about the demise of Coney Island, "Goodbye Coney Island/ your warped sanctity/ your smoldering glory/ seagulls and clowns beseech the story/ if i could only put a jetty round your ashes/ anchor you down till it passes/ the sea washes you slowly gone/ last ride for you/ last ride for me". He ended the night with a song Island dedicated to Kathy, as this night marked their 4th wedding anniversary.

she fled at the break of day
flattened the corn where the husks lay
the victorys here when the victor comes
fall into me like the evening sun

The following morning I woke up early and decided to film Timothy’s rabbit, Angel, with my rabbit, Alice, in our backyard. It would be their last day together and I wanted documentation. (This is really a behavioral study of rabbits. Please note that Angel, the one eared pirate, has the hots for Alice, but Alice won’t give him her phone number nor let him get to first base.) As I was filming the bunnies, our friends Timmy Gologly and David Stith (Gone Away remix and MBD designer who also designed Timothy’s album!) showed up to help the folks move and it turned into a little garden party.

Speaking of grass, when listening to On A Grassblade you might wonder about all the scratches, hiss and horns. Timothy is one of those folks who starts twitching if something sounds to clean. He’s like Tom Waits or Johnny Cash transported to a country farm in Alabama in 1932. I mean, some people have that sort of aesthetic and don’t really walk the walk, but not Timothy. He has a rotary phone, a perfectly out of tune upright piano, watches a black and white t.v. and listens only to scratchy records. He owns a rabbit with one ear for pete’s sake. I don’t think he’d be caught with a cell phone in his hand. But more than all those things, I think Timothy is gifted with the ability to see beauty in just about anyone and everything. He is able to find the crack in the sidewalk and grow a flower in it. It’s the grit of life that interests him and in observing it, he opens windows for us to see the fundamentals of love, loss, hope, God, and the human experience. Your heart rate will slow down as you listen, and you might ponder a few things or two.

i’m just a prick in your sack of flowers
a loose stone in you ivory tower
just a ghost in you midnite hour

Sometimes in the last few weeks, I’d be upstairs in my apartment working on my record and Timothy would be downstairs underneath my feet in his kitchen recording too, and I’d hear a harmonica or pedal steel coming up through the floor and I’d stop working to listen. The sounds would be muted and felt old, like I was listening to memories.

Photo by David Garland (WNYC)

Sufjan: I wanted to ask you some questions for the website about the remix album. Answer them only if you have the time and the predilection. I know you are busy as a bee. First, what does it feel like (personally, emotionally, in terms of your relationship to the song) to turn over your music for complete strangers to remix? Unnerving, exciting, dangerous, illegal? Is it akin to sending correspondence to an unknown pen pal? Or asking a stranger to cat sit for the weekend?

Shara: The word was most often elation! Some of the remixers were not complete strangers at all. Many are my friends! And it’s never scary to turn something over to a friend. Woo hoo! However, for those that were not my friends, the process seemed a little more like an online dating service, where you go check out their profile to see if they will be a good fit for you and hope the first date isn’t a disaster.

Sufjan: You’ve collaborated with remixers before, successfully. How does your music lend itself to this kind enterprise? Or, more generally, what makes a song remixable? I’ve never embarked on this before, and I have the feeling my songs don’t lend themselves to remixing. Do you agree?

Shara: Often the first level of remix-ability in a song is the beat. However, songs like "Magic Rabbit", "We Were Sparkling" and "Gone Away" were more spacially oriented than beat oriented. In most cases, if there are too many chord changes in a song, electronic music doesn’t really deal with that well, so the fewer harmonic changes the better. Another interesting thing is that the dramatic sections in songs like "Workhorse" or "Something of an End", got smoothed over, to create a less jarring emotional world. Genre is a bit overrated, so I like the concept of taking these tunes out of the indie rock world and letting them breathe in a different context. I think your songs would be very remixable, but the emotional content that your music and arrangements supply, would be really affected. In the case of "Robin’s Jar", that wasn’t something I wanted to lose control over. I think it’s all a matter of choice and what you are comfortable with.

Sufjan: My friend Mike Atkinson recently arranged some of the songs from my Zodiac album for string quartet for this performance at the Music Now Festival next month. I wonder if this is as close as I get to the remix? I’ve sat in on some of the rehearsals, and it feels weird taking the back seat, listening in. I feel a little more emotionally detached from the song, in a good way. Is that true for your relationship to these remixes?

Shara: I can’t wait to hear those string arrangements!!! I’m sure they are great! And yes, in remix land, I often feel more detached from the material. We are so gritty and involved in our arranging, with number two pencils, erasers and calligraphy pens, that I think detachment is a natural feeling when handed a remix. All of the tracks on Tear It Down were sent across oceans, mountains and time zones through the use of zip files, dvd files, yousendit files, ftps or instant messaging services. What a strange world we live in! Maybe if I would have collaborated more closely with the djs, I might have felt less disconnected.

Sufjan: To my ears, the remix often changes the song by disrupting context, scrambling form, pushing vocals here, editing out entire passages. It creates a new environment. I find this exciting. How has the remix experience changed your understanding of your own work?

Shara: This process made me aware of other solutions to problems I experienced in integrating strings with drums on "Bring Me The Workhorse". The remixes offer not necessarily definitive solutions, but simply other possibilities. It made me realize how much more stylistically flexible I could become and still feel like me. It also clarified my values by showing me solutions that I wouldn’t use in my own arranging. At times, the emotion is smoothed over with the electronic beds and the feeling becomes prettier, slicker, less aggressive, or raw than it feels to me. On the flip side, in a remix context, I could let go of detailed storytelling, my desire for extended harmony, textural changes or beat orientation. For example by removing the beats, I think David Stith’s "Gone Away" is so haunting, wintery and free. I feel a chill in my bones. By scrambling the lyrics of "Disappear", the meaning wasn’t lost. It’s not that I don’t have intention in the way that every lyric or phrase was recorded on "Bring Me The Workhorse", but the rigidity of what makes a song a song or how we understand meaning, might be broader than we expect. From a classical perspective, the song form is more important than the recording. In the pop world, it is the record, a single performance that has defined a song’s significance. All of these issues are in flux in the context of a remix! How exciting!! Of course, I won’t always want to let go of my musical values, because they largely define me as an artist, but it’s nice to look at alternatives, to extend one’s artistic arms to a larger embrace. Sometimes in surrendering, an opportunity is created for something good or unexpected, unbridled or uncontrolled to present itself to us.

Sufjan: Speaking of context, I hear some of these remixes as club songs, or dance songs. Your record demands a listener’s attention, but a dance song inspires people to move. What do you think of your music as dance floor material?

Shara: Mostly I love it! Songs like "Freak Out" or "Golden Star" work well in that context. Beats are sometimes like grease. They smooth the entry way for the lyrics and melody to go inside of the listener. People learn and feel kinesthetically or visually or aurally. Sometimes your body can understand things that your mind can’t process. That’s the beauty of movement! Some basic elements of song are Rhythm, Melody and Words. Ah the power of the three hand in hand! On one occasion however, I didn’t like the power of rhythm. I once submitted a random collection of music for a short film. Upon viewing the first edits in which my music underscored a violent scene, I had the shocking revelation that the catchy beat of the music made the violence seem cool or acceptable. The lyric or subject was communicating something awful, but the listener would have been bopping along unwittingly to the happy beat. Rather than feeling ironic, it felt manipulative. I think you are right in that the arrangements on BMTWH require a certain attention (meaning, it’s not an easy record to talk over at a dinner party), whereas the remix is more dinner party friendly because of the minimized dynamics and rolling beats. It’s really a question of the relationship between those basic elements, isn’t it? Does the music or arrangement serve the subject? Of course music is about expression, which includes pain or anger and sometimes violent feelings, but in the instance of this short film, the relationship between beats and subject matter didn’t feel right to me. So while I wouldn’t say there are morals in music, the artist must respect the power of art to magnify it’s subject matter. Then it is the delight of the artist to determine the best vehicle for expressing that subject with beats, melody, harmony, textures and whatever else.

Sufjan: Do you have any experience with a dance scene? Did you ever go clubbing? Is there a big club scene in New York?

Shara: Actually one of my best clubbing experiences was after we played together at the Paradiso in Amsterdam a few years ago. Remember that night? DJ Justice and Soulwax were performing after our sets and I stayed up dancing til 5 a.m. Back in the day, at Ypsi High in Michigan, the best dancing happened at car parties, cranking up our stereos in parking lots and raising our hands high. Nowadays, I occasionally go to clubs in New York or LA to see friends spin or to cut diamond shapes in the floor with my high heels. But maybe I just go to the wrong places, because I sometimes feel more like prey than person on a dance floor, so it’s less fun then. I like it best when there’s a safe enviroment with your friends where you can really let go and work out your anxiety or anger or pain or joy or express freedom or sensuality in dance without feeling observed. That’s a rarer experience for me than I wish.

Sufjan: I’m also struck by some of the darker, more ambient remixes. There is no song left, just an emotional gesture. What do you think of these minimal remixes? I love some of those earlier more minimal Mouse on Mars records. And Murcof. And Oval.

Shara: Absolutely. I wanted some minimalists represented on Tear It Down, and I was stunned by what returned to me. As I said earlier, it’s almost like by losing the pop trappings, the songs took new emotional directions or revealed another layer. Certainly that is evident in songs like "Magic Rabbit" and "Gone Away" and even "Something of an End" took a new turn. Sometimes the isolation of the voice felt unsettling to me, like looking in a slanted mirror and seeing a different view of yourself than maybe you wanted to see or like listening to your own heartbeat from someone else’s stethoscope. It was just as much a process of embracing those other sides of my voice, and losing what might have been a protection in my own arrangements.

Sufjan: What do you think of Madonna’s dance remixes?

Shara: Her remixes are always great and I like to watch Madonna dance. She is a queen with a iron fist and honey for hips.

Sufjan: What song makes you dance more than any other?

Shara: Michael Jackson’s "Wanna Be Startin’ Something"

Sufjan: I’ve heard you play a lot of covers. Nina Simone, Prince, Jeff Buckley, Purcell. Would you ever consider a covers record?

Shara: I am thinking of sneaking out some covers by way of compilation records, 7 inches or other back alleys later this year. I don’t think I’m ready to record a full length cover album yet. Isn’t it tradition for people to make a cover album for their 7th record so as to get out of their major label record deals? Well, that doesn’t apply to us now does it? In the words of Nina, "We are wild as the wind."

Sufjan: Awesome! Thanks!

1. Pierre Boulez: Anthemes 2
Favorite recording entitled: Boulez: Sur Incises/Messagesquisse/Anthèms2
For those of you new to the world of Pierre Boulez, let me give you a quick introduction. Mr. Boulez is one of the most important composers and conductors of modern classical music and also, I have a huge crush on him. The fact that I have a crush on an 81 year old man, I can assure you, disturbs even me, but I swoon in his presence. In recent years, I have stalked Mr. Boulez at Carnegie Hall, on the streets of Paris and at The Manhattan School of Music, in which instances I have successfully taken grainy, poorly lit photographs of the man, and have acquired his petite autograph on my concert program. Unsuccessfully I chased him down a hallway in the hopes of getting a picture with him on my birthday, but I was turned away by his bodyguards. Still my hope and love remain. I have seen/heard Anthems 2 performed twice and both experiences were inspiring, thought provoking and beautiful. This piece sounds like the future of music to me. Set for solo violin and electronics, the concert hall is restructured with the use of surround sound speakers to create a completely unique listening experience. As I understand it, the computer is used in real time, manipulating live samples, and creating loops while at other times the player triggers pre-existing musical material. Move over you rockers with your Line 6 guitar pedals, Pierre is bringing his computer to the gig.

[Amazon link]
[Review]

2. Clark: Body Riddle 2006
Dear Mr. Clark,
I love your work and I am totally crushing on you. (I’ve been known to crush on men 3 times my age, but you are probably not that…) You may borrow my music boxes anytime you like. I have a large collection now, but you seem to have your own… perhaps we could create a music box symphony together? Why won’t you answer my emails? Did I say something wrong? Well anyway, you are fantastic. Beat-tastic. When I have a day off, I put this record on repeat all day long and I do not tire of it. That’s got to count for something.
With great admiration, Shara Worden

3. Susumu Yokota: Grinning Cat 2001
I found this record back in the day, when I was first getting into electronic music and it completely opened my eyes to a new world. I had listened to mostly soul and r&b music until college, then came my jazz phase, then my tribal punk phase, then my art rock phase. I skipped over electronic music because the only things I’d heard had been that horribly arranged techno played in sleezy night clubs where girls with backless gold tops and too much lipstick went. Maybe historically other records preceded this one in groundbreaking terms, but it was a revelation to me. Susumu Yokota combines beautiful organic sounds with electronic glitches to create these yummy intimate atmospheres. I say, invite some friends over, slip on the Grinning Cat, pour a glass of wine, and discuss.

4. Four Tet: Rounds 2003
I know you already know about Four Tet, but I couldn’t leave them off the list. This record still rules!

5. Peter Gabriel: Security 1982
This is absolutely one of my favorite albums of all time. Peter Gabriel has been a forerunner in the pop world in the combination of electronic sounds with organic ones. This album seems the perfect culmination of years of experimentation and beautiful songwriting. The instrumentation is largely electronic but also he employs extensive sampling (which according to Wikipedia was through the use of the Fairlight CMI).

6. Alarm Will Sound performs Aphex Twin: Acoustica 2005
This album hits two birds with one stone… wait, MBD is not into stoning birds, so nevermind that analogy. But anyway, we love Aphex Twin and we love these crazy people in Alarm Will Sound who translated this music in such a way that it can be performed acoustically! (However, I am completely un-envious of the person who did all that rhythmic dictation. ) This album contributes to the curious dialogue between classical music and popular music. While there is a long history of classical music borrowing from folk melodies, and vice versa, this takes genre melding to a new level. By changing timbres and translating the electronic blips and bleeps to marimbas, vibraphones, violins and percussion instruments, here Aphex Twin seems more in the family of Steve Reich.

7. The Books: Lost and Safe 2005
The Books are so cool. We all should buy their records. These two dudes make everything all themselves from start to finish. Super musical and creative. Lovely collages of sounds both found and sampled from voices to videos, picked strings and picked banjos. I found out how small the world is in realizing that my pals in the classical-ish musical group Clogs toured the UK with The Books. Dang I wish I could have been there!

8. Throbbing Gristle: The Taste of TG 2004
Lest you think MBD is all about butterfly glitch and fairy tale strings, (not that there is anything wrong with the romantic side of life, but we also like to investigate the shadowy crevices…) I recommend the British experimental music group, Throbbing Gristle. TG was formed in 1975, and thus was born the industrial music genre. This is not music for the feint of heart. If you have something in your soul that needs exorcising, then turn up the volume. TG’s music often uses highly repetitive rhythms, pre-recorded samples and distorted vocal effects. Respect!

[Watch: Live footage of "Discipline"]
[Listen: MySpace]

1. Shearwater, Palo Santo
A friend just played this record for me last week and I was completely shocked by it. Maybe everyone knows about this band, but me. I don’t really have perspective on it yet, but in any case, I think they are great. I don’t think it is really indie rock. I don’t know what it is, but maybe "rock in the modern style". Like a post "Talk Talk", the voice is arresting. The songs spacial and grandiose, but maintaining personal connection to the listener. I love that in the context of our current musical environment, this band has dared make this record.

[Listen: MP3 of "Seventy-four, Seventy-five"]
[Listen: MP3 of "White Waves"]

2. Clogs, Lantern
Having studied arranging with Clogs’ Padma Newsome and believing he might have actually been present for the hanging of the moon, I realize I might be biased, but this album is divine. Clogs is primarily orchestrated by bassoon, guitar, viola and percussion, with each player reaching out into other timbres like marimba, steel drum, toy piano, recorder or piano to expand the color world. The result is quietly incredible. Clogs are very sneaky. Not obvious with their more complex time signatures or harmonic depth, you have to pay close attention to catch them being smart. I was riding across the west of America, through the desert and over mountains and plateaus, passing yellowed grasses and burnt trees, listening to Clogs’ Lantern and it sounded like the landscape, soothing and deep, like it was coming out of the earth itself.

[Listen: MP3 of Kapsburger and 5/4 from Lantern]

3. Clark, Body Riddle
Electronic yumminess. A beautiful blend of organic sounds, electric ingenuity and musicality. Where others are testing the limits of the mind, how many beats the brain may perceive in one second, Clark manages to nod to his label mates ambition without overwhelming the listener. The future lies somewhere amidst Clark and Scott Walker.

[Clark's MySpace page]

4. Land of Talk "Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss"
Hailing from Montreal, this indie trio is as refreshing as a cold lemondade on a hot day with amazing energy, cool chords and interesting arrangements. In a season where indie rock tends to be heavily based on blues riffs, Land of Talk disrupts the flow without folding in on itself and offering a unique voice to this genre.

[Land of Talk's MySpace page]

5. Pedestrian, "Ghostly Life"
I had the delight of touring with LA based band, Pedestrian, this last fall and they also played as the MBD backing band. It was a blissful experience. A real high for me. Those boys are some of best musicians I have ever encountered. Joel Shearer, the guitarist and lead singer of the band, engineered most of "Bring Me The Workhorse" and Zac Rae, the keyboard everything guy, also played on the MBD record. It is really difficult to say what Pedestrian sounds like. Ambient rock might be part of a description. Beautiful guitar work, fervent songwriting, lyrical singing and wrench your guts out drumming. What I can tell you is that every night on the tour, while Pedestrian played their set before MBD, it was a meditative experience and a visceral catharsis that forced me to move, to work something out of my guts, to react, to purge.

[Pedestrian's MySpace page]

6. Inlets, Vestible EP
Headed by Sebastian Krueger, this lovely bedroom EP was only recently made available for free on the internet! Sebastian plays with MBD as often as possible, playing guitar and clarinet, so he is considered part of the Diamond family. Sebastian, who at times can be a turd, is mostly amazing, well no, he’s always amazing and he writes really lovely songs and arranges thoughtfully, with delicate and deliberate intention to clarinet, viola, rhodes or toy piano lines, while his voice comforts. If you are one of those people who doesn’t do mornings, and likes to be gently coaxed into being awake, then download this album tonight before you go to bed.

[Inlets' MySpace page]
[Download: Vestible EP]

7. Dayna Kurtz, Another Black Feather
New Yorker Dayna Kurtz is one of those singers who can make your heart drop into your belly, make you feel like hitting something or find tears in your eyes that you didn’t think you had left to cry. When I first moved to New York, Dayna was one of those downtown musicians that jolted my reality by doing things I didn’t know were possible. Her voice is both like rich caramel and a sledge hammer. "Another Black Feather" is a testament to her versatility as a singer, dipping deep into American styles, a sprinkling of jazz, a cup of the blues, a tinge of country, a dollop of folk and a healthy dose of soul.

[Listen: Dayana Kurtz's webpage]