San Francisco explores the galaxy and beyond with My Brightest Diamond and Clare and the Reasons

November 22, 2008, at the Swedish American Hall

By Camille Ikalina Robles
Published: November 26th, 2008 | 12:50am

With all the talk of stars, galaxies, and the dejected “planet” Pluto, Saturday night at the Swedish American Hall could have been a junior-high class field trip to the local planetarium. But set to massive, cascading, stringed instruments, building electric guitar, and the buoyant and beautiful voices of My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and Clare and the Reasons’ Clare Muldaur Manchon, it was a lot more like floating blissfully in the middle of outer space.

Muldaur Manchon, opened the evening’s show with quirky pop tunes about planets, eccentric neighbors, and cooking in underwear, all the while costumed in head-to-toe red attire. Backed by the Reasons, which included Marla Hansen on viola, Maria Jeffers on cello, and husband Olivier Manchon on violin (and various other instruments), the ensemble meandered through theatrical renditions of songs from their recent release, The Movie (Frog Stand). Opening the show with a love song to Pluto that laments its fall from planetary grace, Muldaur Manchon crooned, “Chin up, Pluto, the stars still want you and we down here do too.” Midway through the show, the group performed “Pluton,” a re-imagined French version of “Pluto,” but this time dropped the lights and played in the pitch-black music hall. With only small twinkling lights of blue, red, and white hanging from the microphones and around their heads, the strangely ethereal mood was perfectly set to a musical background of improvised plucked stringed instruments and an eerie musical saw.

No major set change was needed for My Brightest Diamond, the project of singer-songwriter Shara Worden, as the Reasons were on double duty for the evening. This time decked out in black and white clothes with top hats, suspenders, and oversized bowties, the trio looked as if they had just stepped out of a Tim Burton film. With black and white pennants strung across the stage that matched her own dress, Worden eased into “If I Were Queen” with slow, husky vocals that soon stretched into high-pitched operatic levels during “Apples.” Both songs are part of Worden’s latest release A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (Asthmatic Kitty).

Electronic percussive beats and the added bass guitar by Manchon, along with Worden’s lamenting vocals in “To Pluto’s Moon,” brought the fullest sound of the evening as it filled the room with a foreboding mood of loss and longing. After the song, Manchon took the stage front and center and performed a disappearing scarf trick as the rest of the ensemble hooted and hollered and spun plastic tubes above their heads, instantly lightening the mood. After the enthusiastic applause, Worden whispered, “How does he do it?” To which everyone whispered back repeatedly, “Magic.”

Songs seemed to have no beginning and no end, as each one bled into the next through ambient musical sounds or the distant echo of birds and wind. The pure joy of night was felt throughout the venue, as the performers and concertgoers kept breaking out into fits of giggles, so that Worden herself had to recompose herself to sing “Inside A Boy.” “From The Top of the World” explored the adventures of a boy traveling on the Northern Wind, a song inspired by a French novel. After the song, Worden mused, “Were you sailing in the clouds of hope and possibility? Yeah, me too.”

The final song and most visually breathtaking was a cover of Edith Piaf’s "Hymne à L'Amour.” The Reasons exchanged their instruments for miniature dolls, ships, birds, and a silhouette screen, and gathered themselves around to create a visual landscape to Worden’s guitar and sweet vocals.

Worden’s gift is her ability to become the characters she embodies, from her varying vocal styles to her expressive face and body. From charmingly coy to sweetly romantic to raging like the eye of a storm in a torrential downpour, Worden is a storyteller and she convinces us that these fantastical characters do exist somewhere. Simply, it’s hard to pull your eyes away, because like a good book, you’re always left wondering what happens next.

For more pictures from this show visit Venus Zine's Flickr page.