Bright World is the solo musical project of actor, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Evan M. Williams.
Strong folk and throwback pop influences blend with an indie vibe and hints of world-music flavor to create a sound that is both accessible and atypical; a Paul Simon and Jeff Buckley lovechild, raised by Vampire Weekend, and tutored by Queen.
A songwriter since childhood, Williams draws on decades of experience as a professional performer to infuse a natural theatricality into the music of Bright World.
Alternately bombastic and whisper-sensitive, he finds room for poetry turning the stones of his inner life, digging for material in what swirls deep in his psyche.
As an actor, Evan has gained worldwide popularity with his memorable roles on “Versailles” for BBC/NetflixUS (for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award), fan favorite “Awkward” for MTV and most recently the starring role in the feature film “Midnight At The Magnolia” in which he sings and plays. Midnight at the Magnolia went to Top 5 in US and Top 10 world wide streams on Netflix in winter 2020.
Bright World has released 4 singles from the upcoming album “Cloud Parade” due out November 26th 2021.
A multifaceted visual artist, Williams has created the artwork for each of the singles and self-produced all of the music videos.
Bright World performed live at this year’s Canadian Music Week as well as Deepak Chopra’s Never Alone Summit.
Evan has a passionate fan base of over 89K followers on Instagram and 27K followers on Twitter as well as a behind-the-scenes superfan group who are all eagerly anticipating his next offering whether on the silver screen or in the sonic sphere.
Director Statement
It’s complicated to be alive in 2021. It seems like everywhere we turn, every news story that whips by our feed, unprecedented changes are happening at a blistering pace right before our eyes. The pandemic really threw into focus the ways that modern society has, little by little over generations, grown to be utterly unsustainable for life on Earth. There was this collective existential shock when everything seemed to stop for a second, and threw into question whether this was really the way things HAD to be. And now that the great economic wheels have begun to turn again, seemingly right back into business as usual, I speak to so many people who can’t unsee the little red flags everywhere.
The human reaction to fearful circumstances is to dig in, to become resolutely risk averse, and look out for number one. The more scary things get, the more we tighten our collective grip. Even as corporations rush to greenwash their products, there is still this pervading ideology built on the idea that the world is limitless. The prevailing model is that progress must grow, even while even schoolchildren now know this has simply just never been the case. And yet the machine has become so massive and touches so many facets of life that it’s hard to even conceive of a different way of being. And even if we could conceive of it, how could we ever agree, and is there even time? I wrote The Future Begins Today in an attempt to articulate the many conflicting feelings that arise while hesitantly participating in the slow motion car crash that is late stage capitalism.
I’m not an expert or a scholar, I’m just a human with feelings. So I realized that the feeling was what I was after. The feeling led first to the visceral imagery, and next to a constantly rising pace. There is this seeming ratcheting up of the flow of news and images, more and more all the time, and with it a sneaking suspicion that there must be a multitude of information we’re missing in the constant torrent. I realized that collage animation would allow me to explore both of these angles, and set about trying to figure out how to make it happen.
For the imagery of the music video, I used a massive collection of magazines from the 80’s and 90’s which I was able to retrieve from a stranger on the internet. This project was completely hand-done analog animation. No computers were used to manipulate any of the images onscreen. The conviction of the underlying message behind the project kept me going through the end, and I’m sincerely hoping that people will be able to recognize their own feelings in the work and that it’ll stimulate meaningful conversation. Because frankly, we’re past due for some big changes.
Experimental Film & Music Video Festival 