Fusion 45 on Rebecca Anderson and My Brightest Diamond

I love to meet spirited people. I love to hear good music. When both those things happen at the same time, I’ve scored the “jackpot prize,” as my kids would say.

Back in June, I wrote about my good friend from Ypsilanti, Michigan, Rebecca Anderson. She’s one remarkably talented singer and songwriter. She’s also a really nice person who takes a nice picture, as you see above.

I learned today that she has a couple of new songs on her MySpace Music Page. I highly recommend you give her a listen (and then tell all your friends). There are a few things that strike me about her music:

1. She writes beautiful melodies that stretch beyond the standard intervals you hear in most pop music. Her melodies often surprise me: they’re angular without being overwrought, her vocal style accomplished without being over the top. When she sings a minor 6th, it serves a purpose rather than serving her ego. She creates enough tension that I sometimes feel like I’m looking over the edge of a cliff, worried that I might fall but knowing she’s not going to let go of me.
2. Both of her new songs, Change Me and Gravity, are piano/vocal pieces that feature some deep, poignant harmonies. On Change Me, in particular, I hear her classical training melding with a late 60′s pop sensibility. Beneath her complex melodies, I hear lush harmonies that remind me of Prelude‘s cover of After The Gold Rush and some of those pop songs by Wilson Phillips. (I hope she’s not insulted by that: Wilson Phillips, saccharine though might have been, definitely knew how to sing together).

When you’re done being knocked out by Rebecca’s self-proclaimed mix of Christian/Japanese/Classical/Soul music, come back and look at this video for Inside A Boy by Rebecca’s friend, Shara Worden (a.k.a., My Brightest Diamond).

It starts mellow but kicks into a cool polyrhythmic groove around 1:00 and a great guitar riff shortly thereafter.

My Brightest Diamond – Inside a Boy

Though quite different, Shara’s and Rebecca’s music share the same fluid spiritual and textural elements. They both conjur images of well-grounded women, kneeling before a quiet pond, reaching deep below the surface to find something in the water beyond their reflection. Sometimes it’s peace, sometimes it’s pain but it will always surprise you.