The new Bjork album Volta is out tomorrow, and where I'm from, this is a reason for much celebration. She is the closest thing we have to a bona fide genius, every album is fascinating and brilliant. She becomes more interesting as she gets older as she continues to experiment while retaining her pop core. The new album Volta, sees her working with fine roster of artists, from Antony to Konono No. 1. The most interesting collaborations are with Timbaland and Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt. The idea of Bjork singing over a Lightning Bolt track is possibly the coolest idea I can imagine, and she's only gone and done it on the track Declare Independence. The second coolest thing I can think of is for her to sing over one of Timbaland's sickest beats, and she's only gone and done that too, on the single Earth Intruders and on Innocence. Just listen to the beats on this track, they are beyond ridiculous:
Bjork - Innocence
And as a bonus here's a remix of Earth Intruders by your favourite B-more booty bass electro hip hop crew (a hotly contested title for many of you, I know) Spank Rock:
Bjork - Earth Intruders (Spank Rock remix)
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3 comments:
Its funny how expectation leads opinion. What I read about this album, prior to release, made it seem almost like a return to the Bjork of Debut - the accessible, poptastic, coffee-table-friendly Bjork. But its not, its just another Bjork album, not quite as difficult as Medulla, not quite as beautiful as Homogenic, not quite as poppy as Debut or Post. Its just Bjork doing her inimitable thing, which should be good enough.
But so many people in work who loved her first 3 or 4 albums but were alienated by Medulla seem to hate this too. Not because its as weird as Medulla, but because they expected it to be like Debut, and they want that Bjork back....but that Bjork is never coming back..
...and I dont want her back, because she doesnt belong here. She belongs out there, floating around, combining afropop, hip hop and electronics to mess with peoples heads. Sure, shes going to make mistakes, but hell, her mistakes are ten times more interesting than almost any other artist I can think of.
It reminds me of the people who complain about Radiohead, went they went all weird. Dont you get it? The reason they were so good in the first place is precisely because they were the kind of artists to go off and try something different. But sometimes you just cant ration with Q readers.
I was talking to french Anne about this today, about how the bits of press we'd seen about it was banging on about a return to her earlier days...but the product we've got is too much it's own thing, and I'm glad that it is.
Hooray for Bjork. She's the good kind of mental.
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