My Brightest Diamond - This Is My Hand

My Brightest Diamond

This Is My Hand

16 September 2014

Asthmatic Kitty

 

4.5 stars out of 5

 

 

This Is My Hand is the fourth album released by Shara Worden’s My Brightest Diamond. Much like her label boss and former collaborator Sufjan Stevens, Worden builds complex arrangements featuring a veritable orchestra of different instruments in each song, no two the same. An ostensibly indie pop record that touches on soul and jazz with its horn section flourishes, This Is My Hand is a powerful collection of songs that straddles the line between the experimental pop world of 2014 and the serious vocal music of Frank Sinatra and his ‘50s and ‘60s contemporaries, with a strong undercurrent of the prog-rock of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.

 

Each track here is built like a house designed by M.C. Escher, full of rooms without floors, staircases to blank walls, and doorways that appear and disappear seemingly at random. They are not so much songs as spectacles, masquerading as pop songs only because of the times we live in; if this were 1914 instead of 2014, these compositions would be just as at home in the radical classical company of Schönberg and Webern as they are today with contemporary Julia Holter. Perhaps the greatest achievement yet of Worden’s already very impressive career, This Is My Hand is an album that is not only an instant classic but one that will be looked at for years to come as one of the most important records of 2014.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger