Music from the basement for the outside

Shara Worden stayed with us for eight days trying to write one song every day for her new album.

What do you need to write a song?

Silence. Knowing that I am not going to disturb anyone, that I can make as much noise as I want to make without it bothering anyone and also without being observed.  if you know that people can even hear you through the walls that’s sometimes enough to make you afraid. Or you feel like it has to be a performance. For me, I don’t want to have any observation, even perceived observation. Because when you are writing you have to go to a place of nonjudgement in a way, in order to experiment and have something new happen that isn’t controlled or isn’t premeditated, so you are going to a different part of your brain. So for me to be alone in the basement …is actually good !

What aspects of music interests you at the moment? What will the new album be about?

Its primarily music for outdoor spaces. A lot of the stuff that I have done before has been music for the inside. And now I am trying to think about being outside. Last night we went to the Fete de la music Festival visiting the Coconut bus at Schlesisches Tor, and there was a dj playing and all these people were gathered around dancing outside. It was so wonderful. And I was telling Nadine how we don’t have that kind of thing in the States. The cities were not built for there to be public spaces like that. Even in New York you might have some parks, but even New York doesn’t really have these open cobblestone squares where people would just set up a DJ booth followed by a crowd of random people dancing outside. So for me it’s like being at the zoo. It’s so incredible to watch people do something that’s actually really normal for human beings: to gather around and dance. In the United States this is actually really foreign. In New York you drive your car and go to a night club, – its not just like in the air. American cities were not built with shared spaces in mind. Especially in the 50’s, when they went into the suburbs. The suburbs were meant for this ideal life of driving your car into your garage and not really speaking to your neighbour.

So if you say  ‘music for the outside’, do you mean more ‘easy’ music and ‘pop-based’?

I think so. I guess I am thinking a lot about just a very primal aspect of music at the moment, as being something that everybody can participate in and as something that we can all share together. So facilitating, like I hope what it is, the gathering of the people into some kind of corporate dancing, some rituals… so we will see!