| All Things Will Unwind | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 10 October 2011 | |||
| Genre | Indie rock | |||
| Length | 42:13 | |||
| Label | Asthmatic Kitty | |||
| Producer | Shara Nova, Rob Moose | |||
| My Brightest Diamond chronology | ||||
| ||||
All Things Will Unwind is the third studio album from the American rock group My Brightest Diamond.
The eleven-track was released with Asthmatic Kitty, on 10 October 2011. It was arranged and produced by Shara Worden, with co-production by Rob Moose. Engineering and mixing was by Pat Dillett, with assistance from Jon Altschuler and Ehren Ebbage, recording was by Zac Rae at The Bank, and mastering by UE Nastasi at Sterling Sound. Album design and layout is by DM Stith, and photography by Denny Renshaw. Worden worked on All Things Will Unwind the New York's yMusic, a chamber group that blends contemporary classical and art-pop music for the album. [1] It contains lush compositions with woodwinds, violins, flutes, piccolos, ukuleles, synthesizers, heavy bass percussion, and operatic vocals, as well as challenging and creative lyrics. [2] [3] [4] Conceptually, the album is about Detroit, Michigan, class and race, politics, and life and death. [5] [6]
The songs "She Does Not Brave the War (But She Saves the Day)" and "I Have Never Loved Someone" were written for Worden's then-newborn son, the latter about making an enduring legacy of love. [7] [2] The music video for "We Added It Up" was released on 12 October 2011, and contains footage of a pair of dancers, and a mostly silhouetted, singing Worden. [5]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Paste | (6.7/10) |
| Pitchfork | (6.5/10) |
| Popmatters | (8/10) |
Paste describes the album as "pure, conventional orchestral pop. Gone are the noir-rock undertones and the bubbling tension of her earlier albums, and they are replaced in favor of unlimited access to the local orchestra's storage closet," adding "it's a heady and abstract album that feels more like it should be studied than enjoyed." [7] A review from PopMatters call is a "deeply layered record with lots to listen to and appreciate in every sense. It's also just a lot of fun as MBD clearly enjoys being in character and seeing where the songs taker her," and Filter says it is "a cohesive trek that leaves the listener enraptured by Worden's talent and undeniable magnetism." [4] [3] A mixed review in Pitchfork notes that "the carefulness of All Things Will Unwind can feel impenetrable sometimes, and while her closest musical analogue is the equally ambitious Joanna Newsom, Worden lacks Newsom's oddball vulnerability," and concludes with "to be so many things, to harness and perfect so many disparate sounds-- makes her work feel more distant than it should." [8]
All songs are written by Shara Worden, except where indicated.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "We Added It Up" | 4:04 | |
| 2. | "Reaching Through to the Other Side" | 3:41 | |
| 3. | "In the Beginning" | 4:19 | |
| 4. | "Escape Routes" | 3:27 | |
| 5. | "Be Brave" | 4:16 | |
| 6. | "She Does Not Brave the War (But She Saves the Day)" | 4:05 | |
| 7. | "Ding Dang" | Tim Fite, Shara Worden | 2:30 |
| 8. | "There's a Rat" | 4:08 | |
| 9. | "High Low Middle" | Brian Wolfe, Shara Worden | 3:33 |
| 10. | "Everything Is in Line" | DM Stith, Shara Worden | 4:31 |
| 11. | "I Have Never Loved Someone the Way I Love You" | 3:39 | |
| Total length: | 42:13 | ||
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
Illinois is a 2005 concept album by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. His fifth studio album, it features songs referencing places, events, and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois. Illinois is Stevens' second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan and that Stevens has since acknowledged was a joke.
Asthmatic Kitty is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by a community of musicians from Holland, Michigan led by Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather Lowell Brams. Some were Holland natives, and others had come to attend local colleges and universities. While the original Holland nucleus has dispersed across the country, the community has grown, with new artists and shared projects with other independent labels. The Library Catalog Music Series, inaugurated in 2009, showcases instrumental music by a wide variety of musicians, with eighteen albums in print as of February 2013, and more scheduled for release. Asthmatic Kitty is now based in Lander, Wyoming, Atlanta, Georgia and Brooklyn, New York.
Shara Nova is the lead singer and songwriter for My Brightest Diamond. As a composer she is most recognized for her choral compositions and the baroque chamber opera "You Us We All". New music composers Sarah Kirkland Snider, David Lang, Steve Mackey and Bryce Dessner have composed pieces for Nova's voice. She has recorded as a guest vocalist with David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, Jedi Mind Tricks, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Stateless as well as extensive collaborations with visual artists Matthew Ritchie and Matthew Barney. She was formerly the frontwoman of AwRY. On March 3, 2016, Shara legally changed her last name from Worden to Nova after divorcing her husband, to whom she had been married most of her adult life.
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David Michael Stith is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who released his first album Heavy Ghost in 2009 on the Asthmatic Kitty label. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
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Shara is a female given name and may refer to:
Rob Moose is an American multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer, conductor, and orchestrator. He primarily plays the violin, viola, and guitar.
