Björk: Voltaïc

BJÖRK: VOLTAÏC (2009)

CD I: 1) Wanderlust; 2) Hunter; 3) Pleasure Is All Mine; 4) Innocence; 5) Army Of Me; 6) I Miss You; 7) Earth Intruders; 8) All Is Full Of Love; 9) Pagan Poetry; 10) Vertebrae By Vertebrae; 11) Declare Independence.

CD II: 1) Earth Intruders (XXXChange Remix); 2) Innocence (Simian Mobile Disco Remix); 3) Declare Indepen­dence (Matthew Herbert Remix); 4) Wanderlust (Ratatat Remix); 5) The Dull Flame Of Desire (Modeselektor Remix for Girls); 6) Earth Intruders (Lexx Remix); 7) Innocence (Graeme Sinden Remix); 8) Declare Independence (Ghostigital Remix); 9) The Dull Flame Of Desire (Modeselektor Remix for Boys); 10) Innocence (Alva Noto Unitxt Remodel); 11) Declare Independence (Black Pus Remix); 12) Innocence (Simian Mobile Disco Dub Remix).

I would not bother with this one, honestly. Volta was not Björk at her very best, and neither is this accompanying piece, or, rather, multi-set of accompanying pieces. In its shortest incarnation, Voltaïc is just one CD, capturing a live performance recorded without a live audience at the Olympic Studios. In its longest incarnation, the set also includes a live DVD (recorded with live audiences in Paris and Reykjavik), a DVD of musical videos, and a separate CD of multiple re­mixes of Volta songs, similarly to the Telegram album but perhaps a little less conceptual and autonomous in execution. Plus artwork, of course, and all sorts of various goodies for people to argue about (crass commercialism or heartfelt gift for the fans?).

This brief and somewhat displeased review will discuss only the CDs. The first one, of all the wealth of live material released by the singer, is probably the least useful. It sounds like an expe­riment — would it be possible to completely trick the listener into thinking that he is dealing with a polished studio re-recording rather than a «spontaneous» live performance? Yes, it would. Now what? The Volta songs all sound almost exactly the same as their studio counterparts, and the others, even if they do modify the arrangements (for instance, using horns instead of strings on ʽHunterʼ and ʽAll Is Full Of Loveʼ), still allow for no real spontaneity. Of interest only for hard­core fans who thrive on each and every nuance.

The second CD, the remixes, is at least formally much more creative than the first one, but still, it ain't no Telegram. Because Telegram was an artsy experience — all sorts of people who were, you could say, on the cutting edge of «technological art» back then, gathered together to pool their vision with Björk's in a variegated and stimulating mind meld. The Volta Mixes, on the other hand, seem to pursue a much more pragmatic goal — this is a strictly club-oriented dance album, going along well with some MDMA, a light show, and a vague realization that you are being stimulated by a 44-year old pretender and you don't bloody care.

Most of the remixes belong to fashionable DJs (XXXChange) or electronic experimentators (Matthew Herbert) or other people, information on whom is not even available on Wikipedia, but the results are always the same — psychedelic body muzak with chopped-up, spliced and treated fragments of Björk's spirit floating in and out more like a symbolic guide-and-protector than with any serious purpose. Honestly, it would make more sense to write about all these artists than pretend that The Volta Mixes represent different views on how to show Björk songs from some unexpected side. I am not saying that the mixes «suck» — they're fairly imaginative, and diffe­rent versions of the same song often sound nothing alike — but where Telegram was like a long line of fashion designers, each dressing the girl in his/her own haute couture, The Volta Mixes produces no such impression. All they do is just sample the tracks to fit their own visions, which often have nothing whatsoever to do with the Volta vision.

For fairness' sake, I must say that the live DVD, of which I have caught some glimpses, is far more entertaining than the rest of this stuff — the Paris show is particularly crazy, colorful, and energetic, even if it often comes close to vulgar kitsch (not something I could ever say of the Vespertine shows). But whether you will want to splurge on the whole package will ultimately depend on whether you agree with me that post-Vespertine Björk is a messy, confused, and generally dissatisfactory experience, or prefer to think that the lady has simply become «diffe­rent», but her music still makes sense, shows depth, and/or sets trends. As far as my opinion is concerned, Voltaïc is simply the perfectly adequate companion to Volta — mediocre (downright bad in places) album, suitably mediocre paraphernalia. No big surprise there.

Björk: Vespertine Live

BJÖRK: VESPERTINE LIVE (2001; 2003)

1) Frosti; 2) Overture; 3) All Is Full Of Love; 4) Cocoon; 5) Aurora; 6) Undo; 7) Unravel; 8) I've Seen It All; 9) An Echo, A Stain; 10) Generous Palmstroke; 11) Hidden Place; 12) Pagan Poetry; 13) Harm Of Will; 14) It's Not Up To You; 15) Unison; 16) It's In Our Hands.

The only reason not to own this album is if you own the Live At The Royal Opera House video from 2001 instead. Although these particular performances were taken from different locations on the 2001 tour, and there are some discrepancies in the setlist (somewhat expectedly, the audio album focuses more on new material, whereas the video includes a solid selection of older hits at the end), they are more or less the same thing — and this time around, the emphasis was placed more on accurate reproduction, accompanied with some gorgeous staging, so it really really makes a lot of sense to see the show rather than just hear it.

Because Vespertine was, indeed, a very special album for Björk, and the accompanying tour was a very special tour. In two years time, the lady would be completely going off her rocker, trying out fifty different shades of craziness all at once and, as far as my opinion is concerned, severely crossing the line that separates meaningful art from silly, pompous kitsch. But Vespertine was a deep, thoughtful, far-reaching album, and the accompanying shows somehow managed to be glitzy and «cozy-homely» at the same time. You get just one change of clothing — Björk in a simple white virginal dress for the first half of the show, Björk in a blood-red dress for the second half — a nice chamber orchestra, a couple guys handling the electronics, and an entire female choir from Greenland, in arguably the biggest bout of promotion for lovely Inuit ladies that the world of pop music has ever seen. Then again, it doesn't take much to travel from Iceland to Greenland, so perhaps it was more a question of rehearsal logistics than of generous support for minorities, or of an artistic choice of a group of people from the coldest regions on Earth.

The setlist on the album includes most of Vespertine (all but two tracks) and also makes us re­member Selmasongs (the orchestra introduces the show with ʽOvertureʼ, and later on you get a solo Björk performance of ʽI've Seen It Allʼ — something of a bonus for those of us who find it harder to cope with the vocal philosophy of Thom Yorke than with that of Guthmund's daughter), plus a couple of rarities: ʽGenerous Palmstrokeʼ is a lovely B-side in the form of a heated dialog between Björk and the harp, and ʽIt's In Our Handsʼ was a special new song recorded as a bonus track for Greatest Hits — not all that great in itself, but heavily experimental, with some of the most turbulent and dense layers of electronics on any given Björk song, and it probably belongs in the collection of any serious «glitch music» lover, provided love for «glitch music» can really be called a «serious thing» (really).

The rarities, however, are not as important as the entire experience: both on the video and on the live album, the sound is engineered so as to maximally preserve the «cocoon-like» atmosphere of Vespertine. This was probably not an easy task, but it was accomplished perfectly — and for once, I am not complaining that the live performances are more often than not indistinguishable from studio versions, because the biggest surprise, perhaps, is that you completely forget that these are live ones, until they die down and the stunned audience bursts into applause. For a near-perfect record like Vespertine, this live perfectionism is perhaps the only way to do it justice. In fact, sometimes the live versions are even more perfect — for instance, ʽUnisonʼ, with additional crystal-clear harp parts and more prominent background vocals, sounds as if the necessary final touches to the song were only added in concert.

I mean, it would be one thing if the original arrangements were a piece of easy cake, but they were actually more complex than anything prior to that point — and it is amazing how everything was taken to the stage and even slightly improved upon; and I do understand that only the best live takes were hand-picked from the tour, as far as Björk's own vocals go, but the fact of the mat­ter is that she was consistently in peak form on the video as well. Hardest working lady in the business? In addition to being the most talented? I guess you could say, yes, that 2000-2001 be­longed to Björk, and the current thumbs up will refer not just to the textbook perfection of this live album, but to this album as a symbol of her creative triumph. Too bad the strain was so heavy on her that she went gaga in two years' time, and was never the same after that.

Björk: Homogenic Live

BJÖRK: HOMOGENIC LIVE (1997-98; 2003)

1) Vísur Vatnsenda Rósu; 2) Hunter; 3) You've Been Flirting Again; 4) Isobel; 5) All Neon Like; 6) Possibly Maybe; 7) 5 Years; 8) Come To Me; 9) Immature; 10) I Go Humble; 11) Bachelorette; 12) Human Behaviour; 13) Pluto; 14) Jóga; 15) So Broken; 16) Anchor Song.

With the Homogenic project all set to promote Björk as The Great Mother of All, it was obvious that the live show had to make the appropriate adjustments — and so she did, and I don't just mean a bigger light show and more costume changes, but also the musical backing. The Icelandic String Octet followed her on the tour whenever she went, and although I have no idea if the Ice­landic String Octet is a real octet (I mean, of the kind that can do Schubert's D.803 and stuff), it is real enough to work out the appropriately grand chamber backing (bordering on symphonic) to songs that were, in the studio, largely dependent on electronics.

This is a terrific move, and although the perfect balance between electronics, strings, and Ice­landic pixie voice would not really be reached until Vespertine (both studio and live), it can be argued that the Homogenic songs do not need such perfection in the first place. They are loud, brash, violent songs, after all, where energy and pathos are more important than subtle finesse. And it works: look, for instance, how well the slightly discordant strings compensate for the lack of Vocoder on Björk's «roaring» part in ʽPlutoʼ. There's no roar at all, but the climactic part of the song blows your mind anyway, largely due to the strings.

The actual performances here are culled from numerous shows, geographically stretching from Washington to Prague, and once again covering the Jools Holland show on their way, including a version of ʽJogaʼ with only strings (no beats) that, believe it or not, is every bit as powerful as the studio version — with little to detract you from the monster voice singing about how beautiful it is to be in this state of emergency. The same performance also gives us the rarity ʽSo Brokenʼ, originally the B-side to ʽJogaʼ, where instead of strings we have flamenco guitar — it's probably the closest thing to a wild Spanish ballad that the Icelandic lady has ever produced in her career, not a masterpiece, but a fun curio to hear if you ever wondered how Björk would function in «gypsy mode».

Even the older songs benefit from new touring conditions — for instance, ʽIsobelʼ works much better with strings than with the rather silly accordeon on the preceding tour, and ʽPossibly May­beʼ has an almost magical sound, just because the cellos add an extra psychedelic dimension to the already enchanting «musical-box» keyboards. ʽCome To Meʼ opens with a solo violin part in the style of 19th century romanticism, which would be cheesy in anybody else's hands, but not in Björk's, who knows very well how to combine «banal» elements with «controversial» ones; as long as she still sings that way, she can quote from Mendelssohn underneath her vocals, beats, and loops as long as she considers necessary.

Overall, this is a total success — most of the songs are at least slightly different from the studio versions, just enough to warrant an extra listen, and on top of that, Björk herself is in peak vocal form, screaming, howling, roaring, crooning, and praying her way through without a single glitch (okay, so these selections were handpicked from a vast number of tapes, so I have no idea how good she could be throughout the entire show — also, her voice does occasionally crack on ʽSo Brokenʼ, but I guess it's a predictable part of the program, given the song's title). There's an occa­sional touch of humor, too (check out the endearing "tsk-tsk-tsk" ending to the "silly girl, so silly" coda of ʽImmatureʼ), and then there's the final note she takes on the still-obligatory show closer ʽAnchor Songʼ — something utterly inhuman, causing a near-riot in the audience. A natural thumbs up — this is some prime quality live Björk at the peak of her powers.

Björk: Post Live

BJÖRK: POST LIVE (1995-97; 2003)

1) Headphones; 2) Army Of Me; 3) One Day; 4) The Modern Things; 5) Isobel; 6) Possibly Maybe; 7) Hyperballad; 8) I Go Humble; 9) Big Time Sensuality; 10) Enjoy; 11) I Miss You; 12) It's Oh So Quiet; 13) Anchor Song.

This one was mostly recorded at Shepherds Bush on February 27, 1997, not too far away from the release of Homogenic, meaning that all these Post songs had plenty of time to stew and settle down in the repertoire. The only exceptions are ʽPossibly Maybeʼ and ʽHyperballadʼ, recorded more than a year earlier on the Jools Holland show. As you can see, the album is indeed covered almost in its entirety, with the exception of ʽYou've Been Flirting Againʼ and ʽCover Meʼ, for unknown reasons (perhaps they didn't have a harp on tour, without which ʽCover Meʼ would be hard to imagine); in their place we have the obscure B-side ʽI Go Humbleʼ and a re-run through three tunes from Debut (ʽOne Dayʼ, ʽBig Time Sensualityʼ, and ʽAnchor Songʼ).

Frankly speaking, there isn't much to say here: the spectacle, at this point, still seems to have been relatively low key, and unlike the «unplugged» version of Debut, here the dame generally sticks to the original arrangements — and what changes there are do not necessarily work for the best, like way too much accordeon (or accordeon-like synthesizer, whatever). The Michel Legrand Orchestra is brought out for ʽIt's Oh So Quietʼ, which is every bit as fun as the studio arrange­ment, but this is just one of those cases of «gee, isn't it wonderful how they really managed to save all the complexities and subtleties of this song for the audience, so cool and all, and now I think I'll forget all about it and go back to my studio version».

Amusingly, it is the old chestnuts ʽOne Dayʼ and ʽBig Time Sensualityʼ that are given the most transformational treatment. The former, stripped of almost everything but electronic percussion, it becomes a «tribal-industrial» blend against which Björk is fighting rather than singing. I cannot call this a great idea, but at least they also had the good sense to make it twice as short as it used to be — six minutes of this clanging would have been overkill. ʽBig Time Sensualityʼ is slowed down, seriously tampered with in terms of electronic percussions and «astral» overlays, and is pinned to a nagging not-seen-there-before five-note riff that is more repetitive than awesome. As for ʽI Go Humbleʼ, it's got a quirky time signature that I'd call «limping-funk», but other than that, it's not a highlight of the show.

On the whole, I find myself agreeing, much to my discontent, with the Pitchforkmedia reviewer who singled this one out as the least interesting set of the four. Well-played, well-produced, en­gaging if you want to, but skippable on the whole. Which is just a little sad, since Post is one of my favorite Björk albums — then again, maybe she just didn't have the gall to mess around with perfection. Who knows.

Björk: Debut Live

BJÖRK: DEBUT LIVE (1994; 2003)

1) Human Behaviour; 2) One Day; 3) Venus As A Boy; 4) Come To Me; 5) Big Time Sensuality; 6) Aeroplane; 7) Like Someone In Love; 8) Crying; 9) Anchor Song; 10) Violently Happy.

In 2003, with pregnancy keeping her away from active creative duties, Björk diverted herself by rummaging through a ton of recorded tapes, left over from a decade of touring, and discovering enough of interest to put out a whole big chunk, modestly titled Live Box, with each of four CDs representing selections from the four tours focusing on her first (and best) four albums. Originally, the box was only available as a whole, but already the next year it was chopped up and the four live albums became available separately (for a limited while).

Since Björk is first and foremost a studio artist, and second, a visual entertainer, it is natural to be somewhat wary of the product — and, since it never seems to be an integral part of her disco­graphy, to forget it altogether. But once you do get access to the recordings, it becomes obvious upon the very first listen that this is a mistaken attitude. In her «violently happy» prime, Björk's seeker instincts were buzzing everywhere, in respect to everything, and live presentation of her songs gave her a great pretext to go on experimenting with them even further. Unlike so many famous «art rock» acts, a good «Björk live» experience is never construed along the lines of «how faithfully can I reproduce my music on stage?» — it is much more in line with the old Bob Dylan vibe of «how can I give my songs a second life on stage?». For that reason, while I would not go as far as to coerce anybody into collecting live bootlegs, the four discs of Live Box are really a terrific add-on, worth every penny.

And the first of these discs is perhaps the best illustration of what I am saying. All of the tracks on it, except for ʽVenus As A Boyʼ, are actually taken from Björk's little yellow dress perfor­mance on MTV Unplugged in 1994 — in other words, a setting that demanded, by definition, that performers rethink and re-sensify their material, and thus, almost no electronic instruments or effects are brought to the table. Instead, songs from Debut are rearranged as a curious eclectic mix of... well, whatever is found at hand.

For ʽHuman Behaviourʼ, for instance, at hand is found a harpsichord, which loyally takes care of not just the basic melody, but also the growling electronic solo at the end of the track — which gets you a-thinkin' that the harpsichord, come to think of it, has a pretty «electronic» sound all by itself, compared to pianos and organs. ʽOne Dayʼ is transformed into a fumbly extravaganza of tablas and chimes, completely dominated by percussion and giving the illusion of Björk perfor­ming in the middle of a busting sonic jungle. ʽCome To Meʼ suffers without the tragic orchestra­tion of the original, but the homely mix of tablas, harpsichords, and flutes is still an interesting alternate take on things. And so on — I think that of all the songs, only ʽLike Someone In Loveʼ does not differ too much, because it was a beatless harp-driven song in the first place.

I would never say that the rearrangements «improve» on the originals: Debut was one of the most thoughtfully and sensibly produced and arranged records in 1990s art-pop, and it is unlikely that Björk would have spent as much time coming up with this plastic surgery for a one-time MTV performance as she spent creating the songs in the first place. So, ʽOne Dayʼ will sound less poignant and desperate here, and ʽViolently Happyʼ will have less psycho-menace, and ʽCome To Meʼ will not possess as much of that dark-forest mystery, and the list goes on. But we are really supposed to think the other way here — how, even with the relatively short time elapsed between the release of Debut and this performance, she already had the ability to present the material in such a completely new light — perfectly adapted to the «cozy» setting of a concert in the Unplug­ged series. Of course, some major credit has to go to her partners as well, particularly the percussionist Talvin Singh (who would eventually go on to become a superstar in the «Asian Underground» move­ment), the keyboard player Leila Arab, and the other keyboard player Guy Sigsworth — they do some great teamwork here, loyally following the black-haired lady where­ver she wishes to go and getting into all the grooves with just the right amount of soul.

In a certain way, Debut Live may be the best album of the four — especially if, like me, you also consider Debut to be not just a «debut», but an album totally on par with everything Björk has done ever since. Here we still have a fresh young artist, not too spoiled by stardom, not yet having gone over the top, drunk with her own genius, and seeming more content to just enjoy her own muse rather than becoming The Great Mother of the Revolution of the Mind. Already burst­ing with creativity, but not yet overflowing with narcissism. How is this anything other than an unbearably nostalgic thumbs up?

Björk: The Music From Drawing Restraint 9

BJÖRK: THE MUSIC FROM DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 (2005)

1) Gratitude; 2) Pearl; 3) Ambergris March; 4) Bath; 5) Hunter Vessel; 6) Shimenawa; 7) Vessel Shimenawa; 8) Storm; 9) Holographic Entrypoint; 10) Cetacea; 11) Antarctic Return.

Although this project is quite commonly featured in Björk discographies, it should still probably count as more of a partnership-collaboration between Björk and her (unofficial) husband Mat­thew Barney; more than anything else, the failure of the project has probably more to do with Barney than with Björk, which is why it also makes sense to put this brief review in the footnotes section. It is indeed a soundtrack that Björk fashioned and adapted to Barney's experimental film of the same name — sub-indexed 9 because it was actually part of 16 art objects that included shorter videos, drawings, and sculptures, and were all called Drawing Restraint.

Since the film is on Youtube, I had the opportunity to skimp through some of it, and mostly it was what I expected — a surrealist-absurdist collage, loosely based around a story of whale hun­ting and pearl diving while heavily milking all sorts of Japanese imagery in the process; in other words, a rather typical «love-it-or-hate-it» product of the modern art era. Here, now, are a few select sonic pillars with which Björk thought it appropriate to prop up the visuals.

Number one: Björk's own singing voice, still quite fresh from the Medúlla experience and ready to contribute some more of the same discordant polyphony for anyone who asks. Best tasted on the tracks ʽBathʼ and ʽStormʼ, to a lesser extent on ʽCetaceaʼ; on the whole, though, much of the soundtrack is instrumental or features other people's voices, since obviously Björk did not want the movie to become exclusively associated with her own personality. If you loved Medúlla, you'll love these ones, too; personally, I find ʽBathʼ too ugly, but on ʽStormʼ I do admit that she gets to totally impersonate a mythological siren, so that you might find yourself plugging your ears with wax in no time (and not necessarily for the same reason that Ulysses' companions did).

Number two: lots and lots of shō playing, usually quite high-pitched, because the desired effect is not for your ears to droop and wither, but to bleed and explode. Relax — you're still better off than the hunted whales or the pearl divers. Best tasted on ʽPearlʼ (where you get a whole lot of excited sighs and whoopees, produced by supernatural little furry creatures, to go along), ʽShime­nawaʼ and the closing ʽAntarctic Returnʼ. Not sure if these tracks have any value outside of the movie — not even sure if they have much value inside the movie. Then again, they are played by Mayumi Miyata, acknowledged as the world's greatest shō player and the one to successfully compose and perform contemporary classical music on it; I guess that should count as publicity. An acquired taste, nonetheless. A very stringent instrument. (The Chinese sheng, from which it is derived, actually has a slightly softer sound, but hey, we accept nothing but the extreme).

Number three: additional Japanese motives and wholesale Japanese music inclusions, best represented by ʽHolographic Entrypointʼ, which is basically just ten minutes of Japanese Noh singing as deli­vered by guest performer Shiro Nomura. Not sure again why you need to hear this — if you want Noh, go watch some real stuff, or, at least, train yourself to sonically difficult Japanese singing through samurai movies. I mean, Björk is a «weird» artist by Western measures, but there is no­thing weird about Noh by Japanese measures, so this juxtaposition is just silly.

Other than that, Will Oldham (a.k.a. «Bonnie ʽPrinceʼ Billy») makes a guest appearance on ʽGratitudeʼ, singing in Beginner Level Björkese, and there is an interesting use of brass on se­veral tracks (ʽHunter Vesselʼ) that recalls various similar experiments in modern and totally-modern classical music. These are just minor flourishes, though, whose main function is to raise the level of diversity on the album — after all, the movie is probably supposed to be about everything at the same time, so why should the soundtrack fall short of the visuals?

As you may have already guessed, the verdict is hardly likely to be anything other than a thumbs down. ʽBathʼ and ʽStormʼ could pass for acceptable Medúlla outtakes if you like Medúlla, but everything else feels either too un-Björkish or too toss-off-ish. If the point of the album was to raise awareness of the wonders of Japanese culture in among Björk's active fans («Björk endorses Noh!», «Björk says listening to solo shō music is good for your mind!»), then this is just a publi­city stunt in the first place; if the point was something else, I am not sure why I should be forcing myself to see it, instead of spending time on something more valuable (like watching an old Mizoguchi movie, for instance). But then again, I am totally open to the idea that one listen to Drawing Restraint 9 — better still, one sitting through the movie — may be enough for a veteran whale hunter to swear off his murderous trade for ever. If sociological research confirms this, I am totally ready to change that rating: as a responsible citizen of the world, I love and respect whales, and believe that every whale killer should be forced to sit and listen to hours and hours of Noh singing until the very idea of killing a whale no longer rests in his purified mind.

Björk: Vulnicura

BJÖRK: VULNICURA (2015)

1) Stonemilker; 2) Lionsong; 3) History Of Touches; 4) Black Lake; 5) Family; 6) Notget; 7) Atom Dance; 8) Mouth Mantra; 9) Quicksand.

In recent years, I have adopted a very harsh rating strategy towards «breakup albums» that seem to be more than simply «all the rage» in the modern world — no, really, these days, whatever passes for a «serious» work of popular art almost necessarily has to be about The Magnificent Art Of Breaking Up. People come together, so it seems, merely for the sake of falling apart and then chronicling their suffering in their own, highly individual way. I mean, goddammit, what about starving children in Africa? The evils of offshore drilling? The questions of our purpose on this planet? The verification of the Big Bang Theory? Does it all have to be judged through the prism of «me and him/her, we're no longer together and boy does it hurt»? Additionally, if it does hurt, why the heck did you have to break up in the first place? Couldn't it be, you know, just because you're both arrogant idiots who value personality clashes and «turf battles» over compromises? And now you're using this as a pretext to paint awesome vagina-shaped wounds on your chests? Gimme a fuckin' break, already.

To be fair, there is no reason even in 2015 why a breakup should not be painful, or why it should not be possible to write a heartbreaking song or even an entire album about a breakup. But with breakup stories now coming at a dime a dozen (almost literally so), I am finding myself, for in­stance, more and more desensitized towards these works unless they happen to contain some truly stunning melodic inventions (Adele's 21, for instance, counts as a happy exception from the rule). And it is hardly a coincidence that Björk's personal breakup album just happens to be her least musically interesting album in ages. Where Medúlla was at least arrogantly adventurous, Volta was at least moderately catchy, and Biophilia was at least a curious exercise in «scientific music-making», Vulnicura is simply «Björk's breakup album», no more, no less.

With nine tracks stretched out to a whole hour's length, the lady is busy here telling us her story, using a standard form of Old Literary Björkese: lush, brooding, slightly dissonant string arrange­ments, fussy-fuzzy electronic beats, and her own trademark «operatic» singing that eschews conventional verse/chorus structures and removes any structural limitations on rhythm, rhyme, and harmonic coordination — a style that originally emerged on Homogenic but arguably reached its apex with Medúlla and, since then, pretty much became the «default» form of Björkese, a respectable establishment that no longer holds any major surprises.

Mood-wise, the only thing that differentiates these tracks from each other are (a) the length and (b) the occasional gimmick, such as the use of Björk's old musical friend, a vocally chopped-up Antony Hegarty, on ʽAtom Danceʼ. People have called this album «dark» and «depressing» and «brutally honest» and all sorts of other nice clichés, almost as if implying that here, first time in years if not ever, we finally get to see The Real Björk (who, as it incidentally turns out, just hap­pens to be vagina-chested as a genetic birth defect), but this is just bullshit: first, all of these songs taken together do not have a tenth part of the darkness of ʽHunterʼ or ʽBacheloretteʼ, and second, how is this «the real Björk» when this is so stylistically undistinguishable from her earlier work? Compare ʽCome Togetherʼ with ʽWorking Class Heroʼ and see «the real Lennon», or ʽJust Like Tom Thumb's Bluesʼ and ʽSimple Twist Of Fateʼ and see «the real Dylan» — these compa­risons could at least be understandable. Vulnicura is just as much of a grand symbolist spectacle as anything else the Icelandic national heroine ever put out. The question is not whether she is being «real» or not (oh, but come on now, it's a breakup album, how can a breakup album not be real, have a frickin' heart, Mr. Reviewer!): the question is — how attractive, how seductive, how captivating, how breathtaking can that spectacle be, regardless of how «real» it is?

For many people, so it seems, including miriads of slobbering reviewers and admiring fans, it can be all of these things and more — pages after pages of glowing discussions are dedicated to descriptions of how dissonant strings and electronics can so perfectly convey the process of «emotional healing». Maybe all these people have recently gone through breakups as well, and are able to better empathize than myself. Maybe I have really been too desensitized and biased to let the magic of musical healing flow through my own veins. But the fact of the matter is that, at best, I perceive this all as a monotonous atmospheric current of tolerable, occasionally pleasant (for those ears that had already become accustomed to Björkese), but completely unmemorable and, worse, unimpressive music, without dynamics, but with lots of pseudo-subtle subtleties that may create an illusion of «depth» and «complexity» that is really not there at all.

For those reasons, I will not be talking about any individual tracks. Formally, their melodies are different, their tempos have a certain range (usually from «slow» to «very slow»), their instru­mentation has some variety, but I know few words to describe these nuances, and my senses are not sharp enough to immediately and actively pick up on these varieties once they arise. You may, if you happen to «love» this album rather than just «like» it, criticize me for being too shallow and stubbornly refusing to give it a chance, but I think I know what I am talking about here — the difference between Vulnicura and, say, Homogenic for me symbolizes all the difference be­tween «quality music» in the 1990s, when intelligence, complexity, and subtlety could still carry real intellectual and emotional meaning, and «quality music» in the 2010s, where «form», as a rule, replaces «substance», and all we get are hollow, formalistic re-runs of past grandeur.

Ironically, I cannot even say that Björk fails here because she is now an «old fart», or because she has lost her genius, ran out of creative steam etc. etc. On the contrary, Vulnicura reflects her amazing capacity to adapt — like Madonna for the world of «cheap entertainment», Björk is very well aware of the changing surroundings, and almost every new product of hers (Volta might be a bit of an exception) is totally en vogue. No, she fails exactly because she is doing here what she is expected to be doing in 2015, as mannerisms and lack of substance are supposed to be taking the place of genuinely deep, sharp-cutting music. And everything here counts as mannerism, right down to the unforgettable "every single fuck we had together" on ʽHistory Of Touchesʼ — a sen­sual exhortation that is really as hollow and meaningless as everything else on here.

Naturally, this is all my personal opinion, and naturally, I cannot exclude that sometime in the future, something on this record will click — as it happens now, each subsequent listen only ended up irritating me more and more. How did that one go? "I've seen what I was and I know what I'll be, I've seen it all, there is no more to see...". Total thumbs down — I have no time, interest, or patience for such generic, by-the-book Björkese.

Björk: Biophilia

BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA (2011)

1) Moon; 2) Thunderbolt; 3) Crystalline; 4) Cosmogony; 5) Dark Matter; 6) Hollow; 7) Virus; 8) Sacrifice; 9) Mutual Core; 10) Solstice.

I think that the title of the album is somewhat misleading. Biophilia is a (relatively simple and, when you come to think of it, rather self-obvious) idea of life being attracted to life — a natural inborn empathy towards organic entities, which is why, by default, we happen to like kittens and hippos better than rocks. (Not sure if the theory also works on the Ebola virus, though). This project of Björk's, however, pursues an even loftier goal, professing love and metaphoric exploi­tation towards just about every corner of the universe, from sub-atomic particles to planet move­ment and natural electrical phenomena — so, for the sake of accuracy, she would probably have been more justified to call it Cosmophilia. Then again, she probably wants to treat everything in the universe as a living thing. How artistic-pantheistic of her, again.

One thing you really have to respect the lady for is how she is still managing to keep in touch with the modern world: relatively few artists manage to escape «fossilization» and condescending rejection of modern values by the time they hit 45 — yet Biophilia is, in every respect, a record that just screams «the 2010s are upon us!». Not only was most of the music, according to Björk's own statement, composed on a tablet computer, but the album itself is not just an album: it is a sprawling, arch-trendy multimedia project, accompanied with visuals, educational applications, specialized live performance, and, on the whole, first billed as a «3-D scientific musical» and then as the first ever «app album», so now it can compete with Lady Gaga and Angry Birds at the exact same time: how smart is that?

Very smart, but, I am afraid to say, not very engaging. Personally, I am not very much interested in «multimedia artistry», and I am definitely not interested in watching somebody who used to be a terrific musical artist try and make a transition to a state where music ceases to be the major attraction and becomes «just one side of the story». From a certain point of view, this falls under the definition of «sellout» — in order to fit in better with the times, you sacrifice some of your strengths in favor of «what the market demands». These days, the market demands dazzling interactive visuals, so we play a game of «construct your own universe from elementary particle scratch» or «build a drum machine from a combination enzymes» (no kidding, this is exactly what the app associated with ʽHollowʼ is supposed to do). Yay, nice and cute and a good way to kill time for scientifically-oriented kids who hate reading books, but there is a downside to that: the more effort you spend on these things, the less effort remains for music.

And the music on Biophilia is disappointing — in fact, it is so disappointing that it just does not work as a self-standing album at all. Where Volta, for a while, returned Björk to the world of «art-pop», Biophilia takes us back to the wild experimentalism of Medúlla, only using electronic textures in the place of that record's multiple vocal overdubs — and using them to paint almost completely static pictures, with very few hooks and no musical development whatsoever. The typical recipé for a Biophilia song is — set a programmed groove and let the singer rave and rant against it for three to five minutes. Considering that the grooves are not of jaw-dropping quality, and that the singer's raving and ranting is simply all too familiar, what's a poor boy to do but inescapably turn his attention to the accompanying apps? At least pushing some buttons and learning to be the Master of the Universe will keep you from getting bored.

Ironically, reading about the album shows that the particular songs on here contain the largest doses of meaningful musical symbolism so far present on any single Björk record. The musical cycles on ʽMoonʼ echo the shifting of lunar phases; the electronic arpeggios on ʽThunderboltʼ symbolize lightning; ʽSolsticeʼ relies on pendulums; the fussy chimes on ʽVirusʼ represent viral activities within the cell, and so on. Disentangling all these combinations of ideas is truly a nerd's paradise — and here, indeed, is a «math-rock» album where «getting» the actual math is a real possibility, rather than an exercise in frustration.

Oh, if only the record would have a small pinch of emotional content in it — but alas, neither within its «applicational» context nor without it can I assess it as anything other than a purely formal, rationalized, carefully crafted, but ultimately soulless piece of work. Yes, there are lyrical themes here that tap into the personal, and any major Björk fan will see that, if we restrict our­selves to the words, she is actually using all that «scientific» imagery as simple metaphors for relations and feelings — like ʽVirusʼ, for instance, is really just a plain love song: "Like a virus needs a body / As soft tissue feeds on blood / Someday I'll find you, the urge is here". But the music that she writes is not indicative of any of those feelings. The music is more in the vein of Autechre — technologically-oriented «nano-grooves» that are much better rationalized and intellectually admired than intuitively enjoyed. And this even concerns the acoustic tracks like ʽMoonʼ and ʽSolsticeʼ, where Björk's beloved harps replace the electronics, or ʽCrystallineʼ, for which she invents a new instrument, «gameleste», a cross between a gamelan and a celesta. It's a cool, «crystal» sound, for that matter, but the instrument is used for sheer symbolic atmospherics, not for any sort of breathtaking melody that you could cherish in your heart forever, like the more traditional, but oh so much better resonating strings of ʽBacheloretteʼ, for instance.

I respect the work that went into the album and all its surrounding hoopla, and I recommend hearing it — it was one of the major artistic events of 2011, after all — but I also give it a thumbs down, because, like Medúlla, I consider it a failed experiment that preserves the formal principles of a «Björk record» without offering any genuine substance. As an accompanying piece to some fancy-pants Apple or Microsoft or TED multi-media presentation (of the «what a wonderful world...!» variety), it will work great. As a worthy follow-up to the grandiose/subtle beauty and joy of Debut, Post, Homogenic, and Vespertine, Biophilia does not stand a single chance — not in my book, at least. Next to these triumphs, there is nothing too new here, nothing too memorable, nothing too heartbreaking or heartwarming; and, worst of all, it sort of seems like the cheap designer thrills of the 21st century have finally gotten the better of a formerly unique and independent artist. Then again, there's nothing too unpredictable about this, either. 

Björk: Volta

BJÖRK: VOLTA (2007)

1) Earth Intruders; 2) Wanderlust; 3) The Dull Flame Of Desire; 4) Innocence; 5) I See Who You Are; 6) Vertebrae By Vertebrae; 7) Pneumonia; 8) Hope; 9) Declare Independence; 10) My Juvenile.

The higher you rise, the lower you get to fall — unless you happen to die young, this rule knows very few exceptions. Coming from a nobody, Volta would be a great success; coming from Björk, it is her first album to be known as a major disappointment, sometimes even for big fans, since it clearly shows signs of stagnation. Up until Vespertine, each new album was a leap forward in some respect; Medúlla took that leaping to near-absurd heights — and in the process of leaping, it seems as if the genius finally cracked her spine.

If you do come to terms with the fact that Volta reveals no new amazing details about the artistic world of Björk, the record will be easier to deal with. Stepping a few steps back from the wild, unbridled experimentalism of Medúlla, she returns to the world of musical instruments and pro­grammed beats, once again with the aid of her regular producer Mark Bell, but also enlisting hip-hop/R&B producer Timbaland to add some computerized African rhythmics to the songs. Vari­ous collaborations, such as with the pipa player Min Xiao-fen on ʽI See Who You Areʼ, or the two vocal duets with Antony Hegarty, add color and diversity, and then there's ʽDeclare Indepen­denceʼ, her first big venture into the world of musical politics, whose performance in China, dedicated to Tibet, helped stir up controversy and shit. So far, so good.

What is hopelessly, despairingly bad is that Volta just goes nowhere. On her previous albums, Björk had showed herself to be a master of catchy hooks and a master of atmospherics — you could hum these songs till your humming machine ran out of fuel, and you could be carried away into a parallel (or perpendicular) world by almost any of them. The melodies of Volta, however, retain the influence of the experimentalism of Medúlla — with maybe just a couple of exceptions, Björk is now only interested in continuing the same «free-form» approach of singing, delivering her lines as if they came from a Shostakovich opera (or, at least, anything post-Wagnerian, to broaden the scope of comparison). The vocal melodies continue to be carefully designed, not im­provised, but the endless dissonances and lack of resolutions eventually begin to irritate — not to mention that there is really nothing new or fresh about this approach.

As far as atmosphere is concerned, Volta is strikingly minimalistic. In a way, so were large parts of Vespertine, but there the minimalism was essential to the album's «cocoon» image; Volta has a well-defined extrovert character, and could benefit from some more of those grandiose, imagi­native orchestrations, as on Homogenic. Instead, you get beats, beats, and more beats — some­times just beats, sometimes beats mixed with a single lead instrument, usually an exotic one (the pipa on ʽI See Who You Areʼ, or Toumani Diabaté's kora on ʽHopeʼ). The beats are relatively complex, but hardly ever defying imagination — and the lead instruments are nice, but, as it so often happens with «world music», usually devoid of individual identity. That identity should be provided by the singer — and this is exactly what does not happen.

Of the two «rocking» tracks, ʽEarth Intrudersʼ is arguably the better one: with a singalong chorus and a bit of cosmic humor attached, it is as good an introduction to the album as could probably have been thought of. Still, compared to ʽHunterʼ, it ends up looking like a novelty number — kiddie carnival music, incapable of burrowing deep into your subconscience, because the electro­nic textures all concentrate on tribal beats rather than psychedelic synthesizer tapestries. As for ʽDeclare Independenceʼ, it is simply not the kind of approach I could ever associate with Björk: the song is about as naturally flowing as Paul McCartney's ʽFreedomʼ, and even if you happen to share those bluntly stated sentiments ("raise your flag! start your own currency!"), the song still sounds rather dumb. Just leave the big social statements to Bono, will ya?

The two duets with Hegarty are disappointing: I do share the required-acquired-taste to enjoy Antony and The Johnsons, but on ʽThe Dull Flame Of Desireʼ, Antony is used more like a con­venient lackey for Björk's own purposes, which are not far removed from those of Medúlla — create a multi-layered, dissonant, confusing vocal tapestry and see where that takes you. I find the results pretentious («get two highly idiosyncratic, uniquely expressive singers for the price of one!») and superfluous — the singers do not manage to find perfect balance (contrary to, say, the duet with Thom Yorke on ʽI've Seen It Allʼ, where there was actual dialog and mutual understan­ding between the protagonists), and, at worst, the song just spills over into ear-splitting disso­nance that cancels out their mutual strength. ʽMy Juvenileʼ is a little better, but, again, I could easily do with just Björk's "down the corridor I send warmth...", discarding Antony's "intentions were pure..." bit altogether.

Everything else just sort of blurs together into a chaotic, generally senseless mix of beats, pipas, and songs that seem like pale shadows of something bigger and better (ʽVertebrae By Vertebraeʼ, for instance, strives to convey the sense of constant search and struggle, but the musical backing is so bland and the main vocal melody so unmemorable that it simply has no reason to exist next to something like, say, ʽHyper-Balladʼ). This is just Björk on autopilot — relying on all too fami­liar Björkisms for lack of anything more interesting. And while the lack of radically new ideas, per se, should not bother me (not even the greatest genius can generate radically new ideas for unlimited amounts of time), the lack of memorable tracks and impressive atmospherics most de­finitely does. There is not a single song on here that managed to truly woo me over, and for that, the album gets a thumbs down. Oh, and the album cover is quite ridiculous, too. More fit for some J-pop record or something.

Björk: Medúlla

BJÖRK: MEDÚLLA (2004)

1) Pleasure Is All Mine; 2) Show Me Forgiveness; 3) Where Is The Line?; 4) Vökuró; 5) Öll Birtan; 6) Who Is It; 7) Submarine; 8) Desired Constellation; 9) Oceania; 10) Sonnets/Unrealities XI; 11) Ancestors; 12) Mouth's Cradle; 13) Miðvikudags; 14) Triumph Of A Heart.

Can you say «I am a huge Björk fan, but I hate this album» without running into an oxymoron? Very very clearly, Medúlla is exactly the kind of album she wanted to make in 2004, an album over which (like over everything else) she had full creative control, and an album that nobody could not call «bold» and «adventurous». So how could a huge Björk fan hate this album? Would it not be like saying «I'm a good Catholic, but I really hate Holy Communion?»...

To get a serious answer, let us think of it this way. There is no doubt that Björk's greatest and most unique asset is her immediately recognizable voice and the way she uses it — love it, hate it, but you will not confound it with anything else in the world: people who are only familiar with the artist on a, let's say, vaguely tangential level will always remember her as «that amazing / annoying singer» first and foremost. But this tends to overshadow her other strengths — namely, that she is also a gifted songwriter and arranger, and that she is an extremely talented «advocate of beauty», being one of the very few people in the 1990s who managed to find a completely fresh, mind-opening way to convey the sense of beauty. Mind-opening, yes, but also generally accessible — once you manage to overcome the first shock, getting to like records like Post, Homogenic, or even Vespertine is really not that hard.

The biggest mistake of Medúlla, I think, is in that Björk oversetimated her own talents, and de­liberately threw herself off balance. As unique as that voice is, it is a big, big question whether anybody really wants, or needs, to listen to a whole album of Björk singing close to accappella — or, in extreme cases, listen to an album of a million billion chopped-up Björks interacting with each other like a flock of drunken birds on a wire. The experience is about as weird as the cover of the album, and seems more like a deliberate provocation than a sincere experiment.

There is no doubt that a lot of work went into the album. Each of the tracks is very carefully put together, with multiple samples arranged in rhythmic, often symmetric patterns, while the pri­mary vocal melodies still explore relations between harmony and dissonance like they did when she was still a part of The Sugarcubes. The problem is that this is the first time in Björk history where it gets really hard to discern any substance beyond the form. The album may be brave enough to invent its own sub-genre (call it «math-vocalize» if you wish), but inventing a vital genre does amount to a little something extra than just the classic manner of «putting things on top of other things». And I struggle in vain to find that extra — and while I struggle, the vocals just grow more and more and more irritating, until we're almost in Yokoland.

Some of the comparatively more «normal» songs clearly indicate that talent has not abandoned the lady: ʽWho Is Itʼ, for instance, would not be out of place on Vespertine: deceptively released as the album's lead single, it is one of those intimate love songs, with a little bit of accompanying paranoia, that could well be taken with you inside the «cocoon». But most of the time is being spent bending that talent out of shape: melodies are distorted, twisted, superimposed in brutal ways that require a complete reevaluation of your musical preconceptions. Are you ready to come out with such a reevaluation, or are you not?

Something like ʽAncestorsʼ, one of the key tracks on the record (because Björk herself said that the album title should represent the «5,000 year-old blood that's inside us all»), may be taken as the ultimately diagnostic element. «Loving» it is hardly possible, or at least, natural — taking it as a sonically symbolic representation of the various biological and cultural strains hidden out there in our DNA and our brain tissue is possible, but if so, Medúlla becomes a «performance act», a purely brain-oriented venture that, frankly speaking, reeks of gimmickry and self-indul­gence. As far as I am concerned, all these guttural noises and dissonant notes only serve to irritate the senses — for a genuine summoning of the «beast within», you're on far more secure territory with Iggy Pop and the Stooges than these ridiculously scattered quacks, roars, and wails (for that matter, ʽColdsweatʼ by The Sugarcubes did far more to remind me of the «5,000 year-old blood» than any of these tracks).

The ultimate downside is that, for all of its «boldness», Medúlla gives nothing essentially new. If you took any of the classic Björk albums, stripped them naked of their instrumental melodies, and then hacked up and interspersed the vocal harmonies, that'd be Medúlla in a nutshell — the only difference being that it is Björk herself here, deconstructing her own music. Yes, I admire her iron will and her decision not to stagnate / grow old / fade away at any cost, but you know, be­hind the superficially groundbreaking textures of Medúlla there might actually lurk a subcon­scious fear of not having anything more to say.

Alas, the more I listen to the record, the more I am becoming convinced of this scenario: Medúlla is a certain Björk-specific way of refusing to age gracefully — her personal equivalent of the Rolling Stones' Undercover, as formally dif­ferent as those albums are. On the other hand, this also makes me feel relieved: if this album only pretends to be «bold» and «adventurous», I can still call myself a huge fan of Björk in some respect — a huge fan of her «before-jumping-the-shark» period, that is, whereas Medúlla is clearly on the other side of the shark, and receives a certified thumbs down rating from me. 

Björk: Vespertine

BJÖRK: VESPERTINE (2001)

1) Hidden Place; 2) Cocoon; 3) It's Not Up To You; 4) Undo; 5) Pagan Poetry; 6) Frosti; 7) Aurora; 8) An Echo, A Stain; 9) Sun In My Mouth; 10) Heirloom; 11) Harm Of Will; 12) Unison.

A paradox here — I am in the camp that generally thinks Björk was at her best as long as she still maintained some touch with reality, and that it all started going downhill with Homogenic. And yet, every once in a while I cannot get rid of the feeling that Vespertine might be her greatest album, because it captures her quintessence so damn well. It is vastly experimental, it has nothing resembling a «pop single», it has its serious detractors who correlate the album with the «swan dress» appearance and dismiss it as written at a time when the lady had already went completely gaga — but I totally «get it», and love it, despite any potential flaws.

One thing is for certain: Vespertine is an ideological anti-thesis to Homogenic. Where that album went on a cosmic sprawl, its sonic panoramas extended deep and wide, and its protagonist almost equating herself with The Universal Mother or something, Vespertine should have really borne the title reserved for its second track: ʽCocoonʼ. Or for its first track, for that matter: ʽHid­den Placeʼ. No, it does not matter that the album still has plenty of swooping orchestral passages, or that the entire St. Paul's Cathedral Choir is engaged to add support to the grand finale of ʽUni­sonʼ. Even these elements all fall in with the artist's masterplan: now that she's emulated the macrospirit, it is the turn of the microspirit. If Homogenic was her tribute to the Big Bang, then Vespertine is her tribute to the Miracle of the Womb.

"Through the warmthest cord of care your love was sent to me" — ʽHidden Placeʼ begins fairly unambiguously, accompanied by electronic heartbeat-imitating pulsation and a swarm of over­dubs, all of them mimicking the «bio-music» as could be perceived by an embryo (provided an embryo can perceive any of it... but hey, this is art, not Autechre). You could call this «preten­tious» or «silly», but the thing is, it works for Björk, and it really works for her much better than the Homogenic approach. In fact, there are obvious links to Selmasongs as well: «cocoons», «hiding», «isolation», «beauty in solitude and seclusion», «idiosyncrasies of one's inner world» — all of this fits in much more naturally with Björk's vocal style and twisted fairy-tale hero image than her attempts to embrace the whole universe with her little hands. As wrong as I might be, I think Vespertine is the album that she'd been waiting for a chance to produce all of her life; and if we have von Trier to thank for this (not very likely, but possible), well, thank you.

The potential downside is that the record is much less scattered and diverse than it used to be — Björk's first proverbially «conceptual» album, if you wish, and, as it usually happens with proper conceptual albums, every now and then you have to accept hooks being sacrificed for atmosphere and «ideology». But this is not to say that Vespertine is a hookless record. Gripping choruses are present on several songs like ʽHidden Placeʼ, ʽIt's Not Up To Youʼ, and ʽUnisonʼ — arguably the most immediately accessible pieces on the album. The rest run on hypnotic fuel that takes a bit of time to sink in. Texture, ambience, intonation — a song like ʽCocoonʼ has nothing in addition to these components, but doesn't it actually sound like a «musical cocoon» of sorts, where the soft electronic keyboards play the part of silk threads, subtly wrapping around the singer's voice as she equates physical romance with the «art of shutting in»? Special mention should be made of the quivering falsetto — so fragile and so determined at the same time. I wouldn't go as far as choosing the simple way and calling it «vulnerable», because Björk is not vulnerable — when she gets hurt, she just retreats back in her shell, leaving an ink jet behind — more like the content equivalent of a cat purr after a good mouse hunt, but unforgettable, really, regardless of whatever interpretation you'd care to offer.

Further on down the line, there is ʽUndoʼ, which is probably the closest to her own ʽSong Of The Sirenʼ that she ever got: "It's not meant to be a strife / It's not meant to be a struggle uphill" is another cat purr that injects itself surreptitiously under your skin, until you fall under its spell or, if you're a strong one, realize that it's meant to be a spell and, like Ulysses, start desperately searching for some wax to plug your ears. With its multiple vocal overdubs and wild dissonances, ʽUndoʼ is sort of like a blueprint for Björk's entire next album, but since it actually has a point ("I'm praying to be in a generous mode", she says, and that is exactly what the song is about), it is more captivating than all of Medúlla put together.

One of the most beautiful, and slightly overlooked, things on here is ʽAuroraʼ, featuring some of Björk's loveliest vocal moves ever — you could argue against my point, saying that here she actually breaks out of the «cocoon» to sing a solemn prayer to the goddess of the dawn, but it is a quiet, intimate prayer all the same, propped up by soft keyboards and a harp melody (speaking of which, the harp is consistently the most prominent instrument on all these songs, as if it represen­ted the delicate internal humming of the silken cocoon support — the harp and chimes, that is, which play an equally delicate role on ʽSun In My Mouthʼ, ʽHarm Of Willʼ, and elsewhere). No sprawl, no bombast, just humble beauty, delicacy, and intimacy.

On the other hand, Vespertine is not a hymn to isolation and narcissism: as Carole King once said, "there's room enough for two in the cocoon" (or something like that, anyway), and quite a few of these tunes are essentially love songs — including the solemn coda of ʽUnisonʼ, where she states directly that "I thrive best hermit style / With a beard and a pipe / But now I can't do this without you", and urges her counterpart to "let's unite tonight, we shouldn't fight". I mean, all of that description could make Vespertine sound like one of those depressed, masochistic odes to loneliness, which it isn't in the slightest — it is a very happy, life-asserting, even extravert album, it just shows that all of this is equally possible to achieve inside a closed space. There is no bom­bastic "tear down the wall!", uh, I mean "cocoon", conclusion to this record because it does not need one. ʽHidden Placeʼ may start out with a tinge of insecurity, even paranoia perhaps, but by the time we get to ʽUnisonʼ, everything is just handy-dandy.

If you consciously seek a good turn to jump off the Björk train, do not make the mistake of doing it too early and dismissing Vespertine. Even if you believe that it puts the concept before the music, you will be smart enough to understand that it is one hell of a concept, and later on, that the music isn't too bad, either. Most importantly, this is the perfect compromise between «sym­bolist artistry» and «human behavior» that you will ever hear on a Björk record. Smarter-than-thou she may be here, but she ain't holier-than-thou, and it is arguably the last time that she's sounded so alive, all these vocal parts so befitting a human being rather than an android. An un­questionable artistic peak, a respectful thumbs up, and heavily recommended for professional silkworm breeders worldwide.

Björk: Selmasongs

BJÖRK: SELMASONGS (2000)

1) Overture; 2) Cvalda; 3) I've Seen It All; 4) Scatterheart; 5) In The Musicals; 6) 107 Steps; 7) New World.

First and foremost, this review offers a great pretext for giving a good smacking to Lars von Trier, whom I have always admired for his talent and his audacity, and have always hated for all the wrong directions in which he has applied both. Dancer In The Dark, even more so than Breaking The Waves, and just about the same as Dogville, was a ridiculously staged study in personal manipulation — whose most unconventional and groundbreaking facet was its utter ridiculous­ness. I like the story about how, allegedly, Björk would begin her filming every day by saying "I despise you, Mr. von Trier", and spitting at the gent, which is probably what every intelligent person should have done in her place, were he/she under an obligation of some sort. The only question, of course, being «what the hell was she thinking in the first place?», and a possible answer being that, in the first place, she didn't think about anything, and in the second place, it was too late to back out already.

Not that the movie is bad in all respects: technically speaking, it's fine... other than the disgusting storyline (sort of like «Charles Dickens meets modern anti-American stereotypes») and, sub­sequently, the corny, incredibly artificial over- or under-acting of everyone involved. If you are into movies for different reasons (camera work, lighting, editing, etc.), Dancer In The Dark deserves to be seen. But mostly it just deserves to be seen in order to get a better context for Selma Songs, its accompanying soundtrack — a mini-album whose quality stands miles above the movie, so never make the mistake of bypassing it in your exploration of Björk's discography. This small bunch of songs is the finest thing to have come out of the entire project.

If anything, Selma Songs serves as a wonderful antidote for the distant and over-reaching effect of Homogenic — for a short time, it gives us back our Björk as a human being. Warped, crazy, totally idiosyncratic, but a human being nevertheless. The movie character, «Selma» — a helpless im­migrant mother matching near-complete blindness with a Dostoyevsky heart — may look caricaturesque in the movie (at least, the script does its best to present her as a caricature), but when it comes to painting that image with musical colors, von Trier is out of the picture and Björk is allowed complete creative freedom, and things like these are right up her alley, so she sort of transforms herself into the Who's Tommy and proceeds from there.

Actually, the Tommy connection can be extended: ʽOvertureʼ opens the small set with its musical theme played on the same French horn that was one of the key instruments on Tommy, courtesy of John Entwistle, setting much the same «epic / longago-and-faraway» rock-opera mood. There the superficial similarities end, and we proceed to join «Selma» in her amazing musifications of the sounds of the outside world. Selma, unlike Tommy, does not play pinball, but she likes to dance, and she constructs herself dance soundtracks out of the noises of the factory where she works (ʽCvaldaʼ), of the sounds of trains that pass her by on her way home (ʽI've Seen It Allʼ), of her personal tribulations (ʽScatterheartʼ, ʽIn The Musicalsʼ), and even out of her final moments on Earth (ʽNew Worldʼ). Most importantly, while it makes sense to be aware of the movie to under­stand what's going on, it all works much better as a song-set, without any visuals.

The «factory» and «train» arrangements actually happen to be some of the most reasonable and impressive justifications of the «industrial» style that I have ever heard — far more accessible than your average Einstürzende Neubauten and, for that reason, far more difficult to get right: anyone can base a musical composition upon «factory clanging», but not anyone can get the clanging to form a properly danceable skeleton, on top of which Selma's imagination then throws chimes, brass, strings, and whatever else comes into her head. And Björk's vocal style, the whole «little girl with a lion's roar and avantgarde ambitions» schtick, is perfect for the character — «little girl» agreeing with its helplessness, «lion's roar» agreeing with its determination, and «avantgarde ambitions» agreeing with its sensory uniqueness.

Since the movie had to be seen by, like, ordinary people (some of these still occasionally watched von Trier movies in 2000), the avantgarde ambitions are not quite so avantgarde as to completely neglect catchiness — and Björk's duet with long-time fan Thom Yorke on ʽI've Seen It Allʼ gua­rantees additional popularity, to which should be added the good news that Thom actually sings like a human being on the track, rather than in his «subterranean homesick alien» voice that he'd invented on OK Computer and which I honestly cannot stand one bit: consequently, their mournful dialog generates strange beauty and is a great illustration of «passion in the dark», ex­pressing strong feelings in muffled, semi-implied ways. ʽIn The Musicalsʼ is truly what you get when you cross Björk-style songwriting with the old cliché of «bright lights, big city gone to my baby's head» — orchestral excitement crossed with truly wild sequencing and capped off with a brilliant lyrical/vocal hook ("...and you were always there to catch me... when I'd fall").

The brief crescendo of ʽ107 Stepsʼ could be thought of as an unintentional answer to the ʽ39 Lashesʼ of Jesus Christ Superstar — the protagonist cruelly wound-up towards martyrdom — but, rather than being something self-sufficient, works more like an appetizing introduction to ʽNew Worldʼ, which finally realizes the theme previewed in ʽOvertureʼ and is one of the stateliest anthems to «death as liberation» in existence, and — get this — it is totally warm, friendly, and presents the «New World» as a much more familiar and cozy place than any of the «Icelandic» soundscapes of Homogenic. So if you ever needed an excuse to say "I'd rather die than go to Iceland", there you have it, clear as daylight.

In the end, I guess, Lars von Trier does deserve our gratitude for offering his lead such a perfect opportunity. Who knows, maybe he should have also let her handle the script — and the cast — and the directing — and the editing — and we might have a really good movie to go along with all the great music. Of course, most of the user reviews of Dancer In The Dark that I have read wrong the movie for all the wrong reasons ("such a potentially great movie about human wicked­ness and injustice, but why cast this loonie imp in the title role?"), so this could never happen, and Björk herself has said that acting is not one of her forte's, and that she only did this for the money because it was a matter of special interest. But whatever — the important thing is that we do have the soundtrack album, and that it is perfectly legitimate to simply treat it as a mini-rock opera, and give it a thumbs up, and be happily done with it.