My Brightest Diamond’s debut Bring Me the Workhorse was one of the creepiest releases of 2006. Mixing rock, cabaret, and classical music, frontwoman Shara Worden unleashed some of the most chilling and ominous vocals since the Portishead albums in the mid-90s. Workhorse’s only drawback for me was that the tempo occasionally slowed down too much and made the unsettling dramatics overbearing.
Well, My Brightest Diamond may be addressing that issue. On March 6th, they’ll release Tear It Down, which will feature remixes of all but one of the tracks on Bring Me the Workhorse. Each reworked version will feature a different producer - including Alias, Lusine, Murcof, Stakka and Gold Chains - and cover styles ranging from “drum-n-bass, to glitchy ambient, minimalism and get-your-booty-on-the-dance floor club music,” according to Asthmatic Kitty Records.
So far, I’ve heard two of the tracks on Tear It Down. The electro beats on “Golden Star (Remixed My Alias)” show promising signs of how to amp up My Brightest Diamond’s music and maintain its mystique. On the other hand, “Freak Out (Gold Chains Panique Mix)” concerns me a little. The terror quotient is largely diluted. Hopefully most of the tracks on Tear it Down keep the spookiness and offer some sort of rhythmic boost or reimagining.
You can sample those two tracks right here:
Download “Golden Star (Remixed My Alias)” MP3
Download “Freak Out (Gold Chains Panique Mix)” MP3
And here’s a complete track listing for Tear It Down.
Golden Star (Alias)
Workhorse (Lusine)
Freak Out (Gold CStrihains Panique mix)
Disappear (Stakka)
Dragonfly (Murcof)
Magic Rabbit (Alfred Brown)
Freak Out (DJ Kenny Mitchell REWIND 93 REMIX featuring nimnomadic)
We Were Sparkling (Haruki)
Something of an End (David Keith - NC47)
Gone Away (David Michael Stith)
The Good and The Bad Guy (Siamese Sisters)
Gone Away (Strings of Consciousness)
Disappear (Wheat to Whiskey mix by Cedar AV)
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
While I loved My Brightest Diamond's Bring Me The Workhorse (it ranked among my very favorite albums of last year, in fact,) this remix album, if these two tracks are any example, sounds very bland and by-the-numbers. I was hoping for some really inventive reimaginings, instead we get the typical dance-floor remixes - stutter vocal effects, heavy beats and cymbals, etc. It's all very 1995 sounding - absolutely not fresh, unlike the album the original songs came from. It's kind of a shame Shara did this, actually - this might turn people off of the originals because it is so bland.
2 - Connie Phillips
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