No. 049 - My Brightest Diamond’s “That Point When” changed my life
Derek Piotr revisits and reworks a track that fuels his soul
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 3 min read •
I remember the first time I listened to My Brightest Diamond. It was 2008, and my friend had excitedly sent me “Something of an End” via AOL Instant Messenger. But this is not a story about that song.
Ever since, I have been following Shara Nova’s career with great interest. There is something in her voice that offers a bird’s nest to the listener, and her output has been as varied and ambitious as anyone could ask for.
The track I am here to talk about, “That Point When,” is something of a B-Side from her album This is My Hand, appearing on the EP None More Than You.
I think I was lazily looking through Bandcamp one day when I realized I hadn’t heard this particular EP. The first time I heard it, I dropped my phone and my headphones ripped out, effectively stalling the music. Frantically plugging them back in, I henceforth kept the song on repeat in a sort of zero-gravity mantra to myself: you have endured; remember you will always transcend.
The song is utterly gorgeous in its repetitive motif; the ascending Wurlitzer melody holds the listener continually aloft.
I have hunted-and-pecked to find all the live versions available of “That Point When” and have been rewarded in this hunt by an orchestral version, premiered for Ecstatic Music Festival, as well as a gorgeous live version for Greene Space. I have another memory of sending Shara an Instagram video message, lip-syncing my guts out to this song on Highway 684.
It has been a part of my life for years, and acts as both a cushion and a balm when things get too austere and I need some soul fuel.
I got into a bit of a silly kerfuffle with Shara recently.
I really, really wanted the stems to “That Point When” so I could recompose them into a new piece for my solo work. Instead, she gave me a download link to the parts of her song “Love Was There,” which Brian Chippendale and I remixed as the newly formed duo “D.P.B.P.”
In my mind, this was how she had responded to my request: with a request of her own.
So we made a remix.
Only Shara didn’t love it.
Finally, we got enough clarity into the situation for her manager to send my initial request through. Working with the stems to “That Point When,” I ended up with the title track to my new album, Divine Supplication.
I reworked the harp line completely, and only kept a ghost of the original, transfixing keyboard melody. It was a joy drenching the choir and brass in effects, burying them in the mix, and pulling other textures out. I wrote an entirely new, skeletal beat, really thinking about the microsound releases that were coming out in the late 1990s.
Joining me for my reinterpretation is esteemed composer and longtime friend Maja S. K. Ratkje. Maja and I had previously collaborated together on “Lakes,” a song I wrote for my 2016 record Drono, but in a much different context.
For Divine Supplication, I thought of Maja’s contributions to the Phonophani track “Cloudberry,” and wanted to evoke something feral and somewhat pop-like. I think Maja did just two takes for me, all the way through, improvised, and I braided them together.
That I was given the “keys to the kingdom” for a song I so dearly loved and had so deeply absorbed into myself was a thrilling experience.
In a way I don’t feel like “Divine Supplication” and “That Point When” are connected sonically at all — they’re two different beasts. I wanted to leave the feeling of miracle and possibility intact for myself where the original was concerned. ◆
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About Derek
Derek Piotr is a folklorist, researcher and performer whose work focuses primarily on the human voice. His work covers practices including fieldwork, vocal performance, preservation and autoethnography; and is primarily concerned with tenderness, fragility, beauty and brutality. He recently launched the Fieldwork Archive.
Instagram @derekpiotr
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