Björk - Vulnicura

http://i.imgur.com/pQFo5KY.jpg

"Mouth Mantra"

"warmthness, bjerk"

6 songs written by björk, 2 songs co-written with arca, 1 with john flynn
string arrangements by björk
6 songs produced by björk & arca, 1 by björk & arca & the haxan cloak, 2 by björk
mixed by the haxan cloak except 2 songs mixed by the haxan cloak and chris elms
mastered by mandy parnell

Worm + trees, gerk

I like arca & hc, I will listen to this

So, Haxan cloak and Arca. I'm sure this will be lighthearted and friendly.

I'm so happy she's finally giving us Post pt. 2, I was getting annoyed at all the weird artsy nonsense of the past albums.

some of the titles are a bit 'bjork parody' but i suppose thats inevitable at this point

fine with the album being dark though hope it isnt in a silly way

idk i feel like a lot of grinding industrial music along the haxan cloak lines is dark in a silly way

i would just like this album not to be as sterile as her last couple, arca's involvement doesn't enthuse me along those lines

i feel the same way about haxan and demdike stare, so yeah, im hoping bjork manages to make them avoid that.

more enthused to see what arca does with her. his album has gotten better for me.

arca "fits" with björk in what seems a pretty obvious way to me, and i find his stuff sterile as well, so...never say never but i'm not excited

whereas dark grinding industrial stuff, silly or not, seems like it might lead to something surprising at least - she's nodded to it a few times in her solo career but only as anomalies

sure, that could be true, and i do love dark music, just not when its so self consciously, incredulously, dark. its a kind of boring aesthetic aim to me at this point.

i'm expecting the arca stuff to sound something like the twigs album. The haxan cloak's involvement is a bit more intriguing to me.

im hoping the arca stuff will sound like the harold budd-ish bits on his album, and the more abstract moments on there, that sort of highly controlled semblance of abrasion that he seems to do a lot. cant imagine it will sound like twigs, ie i dont see bjork doing art-R&B.

TBH the choice of producers is neither here nor there for as long as her songwriting continues to be as poor as it was on Biophilia and Volta.

:( no Total Freedom collab after all?

As much as I love Haxan and Arca to infinity I feel like I know what that record will sound like, but would have no idea what sort of record she'd have made with TF

Matt DC otm

The announcement only listed producers and writers. Maybe Total Freedom did just some additional programming? Or maybe he just hung out with them.

I maintain that Bjork's songwriting has always been medium-good-to-great and that any perceived "drop-off" in quality is people unwilling to follow her into her indulgent non-pop phase.

I mean, I'm kind of part of that camp too, listening to Volta and Biophilia felt and feels more like a chore than an act of pleasure, and they're both highly non-functional records (there is nothing that can be accomplished while they are playing aside from listening to them), but considering that as an artist she's expressed a desire to move away from the genre-conventions of her first couple records and devise her own language, and that she's been super-successful at doing so, I can't help but feel as a human more supportive and appreciative of her latter-day records, even if they appeal to me less as a consumer

Volta doesn't really feel like 'indulgent non-pop' to me, a lot of it is very accessible but kind of flimsy at the same time. Biophilia is about as close to Bjork-by-numbers as it's possible to get though.

Both records feel like a drag though and this is from someone who rates Homogenic-through-Medulla much more highly than the first couple of albums.

agree with mdc on all counts there. volta felt like a back-to-pop move at the time - her most ~eclectic, outward-looking album since post with the greatest variety of mainstream-ish collaborators, i think? def not its own strange world like homogenic thru medúlla. it's just that the songs don't hold up. volta and biophilia feel like björk spinning her wheels, songwriting-wise, albeit in different ways (accessible vs conceptual).

I can't imagine Biophilia as being "Bjork-by-numbers" with the app and film and invented instruments and entirely new production team, but I mean, I think of "Moon" and "Cosmogeny" as being as strong ~songs~, in the chords-melody-lyrics sense, if not stronger, than older favourites like "Joga" or "Human Behaviour".

It's the more "avant" songs like "Hollow" and "Dark Matter" that to me sound like Bjork at her most vital, songs and production coming together.

But I do agree that both records do feel more like a drag when I listen to them with a consumer's ears instead of, like, an appreciator's ear. I don't really know how to say it any better? Something about her working hands-on with a bunch of crazy instruments seems kind of more perfect-for-her-as-an-artist-with-intent than singing along to backing tracks

volta and biophilia feel like björk spinning her wheels, songwriting-wise, albeit in different ways (accessible vs conceptual).

Don't feel the same way but totally get where you're coming from

http://i.imgur.com/JSV7g0J.jpg

A string of NYC dates announced to coincide with the MoMA career retrospective. Arca is joining her touring band.

03-07 Carnegie Hall
03-14 Carnegie Hall
03-25 City Center
03-28 City Center
04-01 City Center
04-04 City Center
06-06 Governor's Ball

I wonder if she's going to take the show on the road and do a 'proper' tour as well, or is it going to be limited only to residencies in major cities.

I feel like if that's the album cover, that's the best album cover. I'm excited for this on that basis alone and I never even checked out her last album.

if what's the album cover? if you mean the photo of what seems like tour rehearsals, I think that's unlikely? there's this though http://instagram.com/p/x7m_-JpKZR/ which I don't think is likely to be the album cover either but whatever it is it has a different vibe to what I would have imagined considering the collaborators

After Earth Intruders, the rest of Volta was a slog.

Reposted from Instagram:

https://41.media.tumblr.com/4ed98a8f0b133a8b4cebcb88f6abfe38/tumblr_niakezhrno1qgfhb8o1_1280.png

This logo thingy is NOT the cover (just a part of the album's visual identity), albeit it probably uses similar colour palette. I also expected something darker but now that I think of it, dark colour scheme would probably be too obvious.

It actually reminds me a bit of the Me Company design she used to use back in the 90s. But it's till done by M/M Paris who did all her album artwork since Vespertine.

Arca seems like a right twat. The kind of thing the Fader would get excited about for 5 minutes then forget all about.

Why is he tied to that chair?

That is the way Fader works, yes. Arca is great tho and you are nuts

I maintain that Bjork's songwriting has always been medium-good-to-great and that any perceived "drop-off" in quality is people unwilling to follow her into her indulgent non-pop phase.

Probably true, because she is so singular. Bjork is the best Bjork we will ever get. That said, I think both her albums and her live shows have been a chore for me lately. I last saw her at the Pitchfork fest, and I was with some friends who I could tell liked the idea of Bjork better than the actual Bjork. That is, they claimed to be big fans, but I could see them struggling to pretend to prefer what she was up to to her more fun earlier stuff.

Anyway, I'm not sure what would get me back on the Bjork train, but you go, Bjork. Keep on bjorking.

damnit, I so don't want to see Bjork in a seated venue but I so SO don't want to not buy tickets and then find out she's not playing any other Philly/NY/DC dates

fyi all 4 of the Saturday shows are 12pm matinees and two Wednesday shows are at 8pm like a regular concert

can any NYC insyderz recommend one venue over another?

string arrangements

Well I'm in.

Bjork has been "a chore" for me since Post, but there is a deeper respect her as an artist, she is attempting the impossible. afaic there are no other 50-year old women functioning at a pop level with her level of artistic ambition. I too am into her "fun earlier stuff", even on her Vespertine tour I got bored, slipped out early, took the early ferry home. But I'm increasingly inclined to chalk that up to the preference my consumer's ear has for what is new and exciting (or in this case, the memory of new and exciting product). It's tough to really compare her to other fourth-decade-of-her-career big tent artists because... I can't think of any others.

I find Vespertine her least chore-like album. Medulla was the about-face, tho even that had songs that I felt I inherently understood in their Scandinavianciocity (e.g. "Mouth's Cradle").

Everybody has a favourite
I'm just trying to express that I've been tracking my own Bjork-fandom for decades and finding that ultimately I find there's more to say about the changing nature of long-term artist-fan relationships than there is any ups or downs in her work, which is pretty consistently notsobad! and so ambitious!

feel like medulla is in some ways secretly her poppiest album

no wait I'm just thinking of the singles

if what's the album cover? if you mean the photo of what seems like tour rehearsals, I think that's unlikely? there's this though http://instagram.com/p/x7m_-JpKZR/ which I don't think is likely to be the album cover either but whatever it is it has a different vibe to what I would have imagined considering the collaborators

― ufo, Saturday, January 17, 2015 3:23 AM Bookmark

I meant the image in the OP.

man i forgot how much i liked vespertine. "unison"!

Vespertine was the first one I didn't like upon release, except Cocoon obv and the weirder songs ("An Echo, A Stain") but as her latter-day songwriting style has developed (and I've gotten used to the xtremely bright and sibilant vocal production) I'm come 180 on it and love it love it

Vespertine still remains my favourite Björk album, and I've never been able to bypass cliches to explain why, which annoys me to some bit. It's snug, sexy, erotic, honest, disarming and so succinct in conveying a unified sound and feel. It still blows me away every single time.

honestly wondering if i should blow the requisite c-note plus to get a pair of tickets; would love to if i were sure of what the material was

i'm listening to this album right now

so much strings and so many looooong songs it feels like the electronic Ys

Can you remember anything after listening to it? I feel like that's what I've been unable to do since 2001 - it all feels so, dunno, so complicated that it might as well be improvised

I don't know who's Arca, but what's wrong with his pants in that rehearsal pic?

He's so edgy that his knees have cut holes in his pants

I gotta say, while I admire that Björk has managed to wave this sort of unique forwardthinking wave inside pop music and is always looking for new sounds and new collaborators, I wish she'd have a time to do a more conservative side project or something, with more traditional arrangements and singing. "Gling-Gló" remains the one album with her that I listen to the most, she has such wonderful voice and unique phrasing, I'd love to hear more of that in a non-experimental setting. I mean, obviously the world has gained a lot by her not settling for a career as a pop-jazz singer, but I wish she hadn't abandoned that side of things altogether.

You might be in luck if "more traditional" is what you'd like Tuomas.

I've only heard the new record once, but my, is it lush... Strings, strings everywhere! (already curious what fgti will think of the arrangements!) in no way is this 'sterile' sounding, as some feared because of Arca. If anything, to my ears, it's quite the opposite.

I hated this on first listen! Her most glaring failure as a lyricist and melodist imo is that she sometimes repeats herself exactly, or reuses idiosyncratic words or phrases. I had the sensation during the first track that I was listening to a friend who'd forgotten he'd already told this hilarious story at last week's dinner party. Flip-side of that is that the arrangements sound guileless but laboured over which is basically the best combo, never fussy yet packed with details, but like I've always thought she was a great arranger

Also I can't stand the sound of blown-out kick drum that is all over this record (and Andy Stott's last two for that matter), it's sounds corny, I want kicks to affect my body instead of sounding like baby's first distortion pedal

on first listen there's an abyss between how lovely the arrangements are and how tedious/aimless the vocals are

Haha, you are definitely right about the lyrics :) I've had the same déjà-vu listening to this ("mirrrraccculous!"). I think we all have a friend like that but personally I find it very easy to forgive those friends usually, it is part of who they are. I'm just a sucker for it I guess.

I love the pace of the record though, and think the arrangements are sublime. There's a particular shine and starkness about the strings that make it very 'raw', real. 'Notget' sounds like she's right there, live, with a string orchestra behind her.

I agree about the kick drum though, I don't know why that needs to sound so blunt.

xp

lex otm

Wait did this leak already?? How???

I'd love to hear her record an album with D'Angelo's current band. Like, she can weird demo all she likes, but then give those demos to D's band and see what they do with it.

http://hasitleaked.com/2015/bjork-vulnicura/

I'm not going to listen to it until a HQ version is out, but if the sound is lush and the lyrics are overly deliberate, I can't imagine not loving it.

you guys seem to be talking more about the music than bjork. which doesnt seem to bode so well :|

You can't say no to hope, you can't say no to happiness.

Yeah Eric it... is not the prettiest sounding leak, pretty low quality. I even thought the last track was weirdly mastered. Three months out? This version could honestly even be rough mixes. Not that better mixes will wave a wand over these melodies and lyrics

13 or 14 years ago she talked about listening to a lot of metal with her husband. Were she to show any evidence of that, plus a little shout-out to her post-punk roots in KUKL, that would perk my interest up.

This is a real slog to get through. Hard to hear what the Haxan Cloak brought to the table.

on first listen there's an abyss between how lovely the arrangements are and how tedious/aimless the vocals are

If anything I think they're too close together, on Lion Song in particular she seems to be shadowing the strings rather than vice versa. I mean she clearly wrote both the vocal and the orchestral melodies, they're of a piece, but what works for a string section doesn't always work for a singer, and I think her delivery over the last few records has made some of the vocal melodies sound more laboured than they should.

I'm only half way through but this feels like Homogenic's lesser twin, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than the last couple of records.

Hard to hear what the Haxan Cloak brought to the table

Dunno who produced what but the enormous blown out bass sound on 'Families' sounds like the Haxan Cloak.

It's a measure of how much Antony Hegarty's star has fallen that no-one's even bothered to mention his appearance.

"History Of Touches" is really lovely and very sad

Xpost Her appearance? Just noticed all the pronouns were changed recently:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Antony_and_the_Johnsons

Mmm did he have a sex change? Hisher wiki page also changed the pronouns.

:|

uhhhh

whether or not he hesheshe had a sex change is of absolutely no relevance nor is it anyone's business; you don't need surgery to identify as trans.

^^^^^^^

To be fair, the first song is really nice in a "this is a sop to people who wanted an exact mid-point between Homogenic and Vespertine", because I did. The rest feels like a long and aimless slog, though the last few songs are a slight pick-up. Might be proved wrong on a few more listens but doubt it.

Well antony has been identifying as a trans for more than a decade which is why it seemed odd that just recently the pronouns on the wikipage were changed.

But this thread isn't about Antony so whatever.

I'm streaming stonemilker right now and I think it sounds gorgeous. Definitely not the sound I was expecting. This sounds like something straight out from Homogenic. If the rest of the album is similar I'm going to love this.

stevie d otm but moka's response maybe under the heading of "if nobody's ever told you that's the case and you don't spend time around anybody who is trans or in a trans relationship, you might not know"

Been listening to this all day, and despite Bjork's chameleon like quality of changing color and tone with her music throughout time, influencing me as a listener, I feel rather confident to say this is a fucking fantastic album. The pace, the arrangements, the strings, the honesty, the nakedness with no strings attached: there's an *idea* here! From start to finish. That is 'my' Björk. To keep the sound unified, make an album from the first to the last track again, coherence.

I missed that, in her rather frenetic experimental couple of attempts before this. The flow of this album feels so natural, so pre-written, pre-disposed. It was meant to turn out like this. Make of it what you will, but this comes from the gut. She doesn't sound like she is trying to be an outlier any more, or experimental for experiments sake.

It's the most coherent, emotionally and sonically uniformly sounding album since Vespertine. Yes, we hear her echoing herself, in lyrics, in strings, in song building. But that is Björk. This is Björk, to me. Her detours (Biophilia, Volta) into experiment now sound just like mere experiments, deviating from her core. While her core, the music that seems closest to her, is Vespertine.
This album is an updated version of Vespertine. In its stark- and nakedness, in lyrical themes: in all things Björk. This totally sounds like Björk being Björk again. And wow do I dig, do i dig...

Some reviews I can already see coming: same old, step back etc. No progression, not what we expected etc. Sod that. This is my Björk, this is Vespertine Björk, and I love her for making this album. Digging for unison (also a Björk word, I'm aware). Bold, yet honest and naked. No fucking app, no otherwordly instrumentsf or the sake of it: this is Björk. And even though the kick drum is too loud (it is), this album is so close to the heart, it is fucking magnificent.

you guys seem to be talking more about the music than bjork. which doesnt seem to bode so well :|

― StillAdvance, Sunday, January 18, 2015 9:52 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk this goes back to the "Bjork sings and writes lyrics only" idea which too many collaborators have said is wrongheaded. If she works with someone in the studio she's the songwriter with collaborator, and I think as time's gone on she has enlisted collaborators for atmosphere and aesthetic flourishes over instrumental co position. Her doing her own string arrangement is probably a culmination of this.

I feel like her instrumental and arrangement impulses have made the vocals take a back seat or at least have made them have a different relationship to the music as time has gone on, but it's more a matter of the totality being more in her control?

didn't she do most (or at least a good portion) of the string arrangements on Homogenic?

apparently! I guess she did them on keyboard originally

wow, I don't know if this is the final master or not, but it's gorgeous so far. Black Lake!

She does a lot of her own arrangements afaik, as far back as Anchor Song. Deodato did Post, she had help on Homogenic strings and choral stuff on Vespertine and Medulla, but I believe even the live brass arrangements on the Volta tour were collaborative with her and that harpsichord guy. She's got a super-distinct voice as an arranger imo

But like whoever collaborates with her arrangement-wise is likely just to save her the massive amount of bleah hours that scoring work takes up.

Literally my dream is to be like
Make it sound like this
And someone who went to music school writes it down for me
Book living the dream

Bjork. Bjork is living the dream.

im gonna wait to hear this a bit. feel like im constantly just jumping from one big leak/stream to another lately and i dont want to hear this, think 'ah its not *immediately* amazing' and just give up on it. but if this is a return to vespertine (my favourite of her albums), im happy.

surprised that these are apparently not finished? i don't want to listen too much to them if that's the case...

It definitely sounds unfinished, not properly mixed and mastered if nothing else.

leaks are one thing but leaks so far in advance of unfinished tracks, oof

I wonder if this will inform the release schedule

i'm not a moralist about tracking down/listening to leaked work but i'm not especially interested in critically exploring unmastered work from an artist who traffics so heavily in subtleties. I can wait.

Yeah I downloaded and listened once and will probably not do so again until it's officially released.

Is anyone else going to try to buy tickets today? My strategy is to buy one of the later dates since the album will most likely be out by then (properly mastered) and I can familiarize myself w/ it first, and prob buy one of the Saturday matinees bcz then I won't have to take time off work and also Arca will be playing.

Yep, I'm not touching this leak. I'll listen to it when I have the vinyl in my hands.

How do we know this is an unmastered version?

We don't know. I am used to hearing Bjork's albums when they're mastered and mixed and this record sounds unmastered and even perhaps unmixed. It could just be the low-quality encoding, I'm not an enormously audiophilic person but strings along with cymbals are the first things to suffer from low bitrates

Throw on any other string-laden Bjork track alongside these tracks and you'll be like "oh!"

"Sod Off" is one that's always sounded really poorly mastered to me and, thus, never popped the way I presume it was intended.

7th row orchestra seats for one of the City Center shows, trembling rn tbh

congrats

if anyone's going 3/28 I (and maybe Treesh) will see you there!

the ad at the top of the thread makes me really not want to listen to this at all

that cutesy note at the top of this thread makes me think bjork has had a large influence on the cake and coffee shops of london.

The map at the top of this thread makes me wonder how many glockenspiels will fit into my Timbuk2 for this treasure hunt.

I love 'Debut,' 'Post,' 'Homogenic,' 'Medulla' and a lot of the early b-sides because she was such an amazing songwriter first and foremost, great singer second (see especially the Brodsky Quartet version of "Anchor Song"), and had fantastic production ideas and a keen sense for picking collaborators who were both sympathetic to and pushed the impact of qualities #1 and #2. Unfortunately to me quality #3 seems to have overwhelmed her voice and the songwriting has seem rather auto-pilot on the last couple projects. It almost reminds me of Joni Mitchell in he late 70s/80s, where she just lost interest altogether in songs and in her voice, except where she just became absorbed in endless verbiage, Bjork has become unmoored in endless vocalizing (sans melody) and a gauzy, floating drift (even on the songs that would be singles). It's not like collaborations and new ideas preclude great songs--'Medulla' to me is her last album with fantastic pop songs even though most people seem to consider it a high-concept gimmick.

So while I'll never be surprised if Bjork were to make another truly great record if she gets inspired to really write (pop) songs again, what I'm hearing about this album so far makes me think this isn't the one and I can already basically imagine the rhyme-free lyrics and hookless melodies and her charming but not especially compelling little stock melodic phrasing (with stock Icelandic phrases).

I think this track fully encapsulates what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWV4N-ZcDJg

It's so very Bjork, but it just kind of stacks Bjork-quirk on Bjork-quirk in a ponderous way such that what was so deeply moving on something like "Joga" just becomes treading water. It's not that I question that it means something to Bjork herself, I just find it inaccessible and unengaging for me as not-Bjork. From descriptions, sounds like the new album is very much in this vein?

(Interesting contrast would be Hercules & Cleopatra's "Blind" which anchors Antony's similarly floating melody through the beat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BYY7wupj4o )

Not Get seems pretty stunning at first listen.

The album has just been released in proper quality on UK iTunes.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/Vulnicura/id959973080

Welp, there goes any release/promo strategy.

must be really gutting for someone who puts so much thought into all of that

(then again she has rinsed her hardcore fans out of a lot of money over the past decade-and-more)

Björk is the queen of fan exploitation.

so many box sets and live recordings

I wonder if that's a whoopsie and it'll get taken down in like 20 minutes?

or they're rushing out the official version and it'll show up for the U.S. real soon.

not the thread but oh well wow vespertine sure is something special #coolbjorkthoughts

She wrote a message on her official forum thanking fans who wanted to wait with listening until March and saying that they might 'not have to wait' after all. So it seems deliberate.

hearing bjork say like "to wait is to have all the time" or something, the yang to the neil young approach

What if Bjork rushed the mastering job? What if we are not hearing the Bjork that Bjorked intended because Bjork was in a hurry!!!!?!

And ... officially out in the US, too.

I am just a simple, playful songstress
with a net worth of $45 million

I do hope you enjoy these new little ditties I've dashed off!

https://twitter.com/bjork/status/557624630182445056

pretty dope look

i don't think you can rush a mastering job in like 48 hours...

..can you???

it's plausible, it's the fastest part of the process for sure.

http://i.imgur.com/NJUFE4y.jpg

vaginylion

felt the need to count the number of fingers twice just in case that was also something she was doing

pipe legs really bothering me

http://i.imgur.com/u98JXOk.jpg

ty

thatsmyfetish

Not loving the cover but it does look like an update on the 'style' of the homogenic era singles.

Only now with vagina leather sweater

huh

so far this is kinda nice!

I think the leak was already mastered 'n mixed, listening to the album in proper bitrate now. Still in complete awe, I must admit idgaf if she repeats herself and this is the 'analogue' Vespertine. First half completely sweeps me off my feet.

I wonder if Bjork is taken for granted these days, amidst tons of Bjork-influenced artists. I don't expect something unprecedented, just something Bjork

something borrowed, something blue

Volta is amazing, btw, I will not tolerate any dissent

this fucking album

this is so good

😄

Sorry to go all Hongro, but she appears to have lost the ability to write catchy melodies.

The beats and strings are nice enough.

I think the melodies here are gorgeous. Sure, it's not exactly 'catchy' since there are almost no typical hooks, but I find the way her vocals and strings slowly develop and interweave to be absolutely beautiful. Little glorious gems of melody scattered throughout the songs.

The production is understated and classy as well - she could've easily slapped way too much electronics on top of these tracks (remember the DnB throwbacks glued onto Biophilia?) but there's enough space to let them breathe. And the beats never overshadow those awesome string arrangements. I'm really pleasantly surprised with this album.

Oh, and it's depressing as fuck.

Between this and Dawn Richard I think I've lost my abilities to make any good judgement calls on a first listen. There is lots about this I love, superficially her lyrics are same-as-always but only in word choice, these are some extremely generous songs, very sentimental.

Break-up album, yes?

Yes. From her fb timeline:

Björk
dear websitefolks , fans , tweeters and my music supporters on all the sorts of www :

vulnicura will be rolling out worldwide over the next 24 hours !!
http://smarturl.it/vulnicura

i am so grateful you are still interested in my work !!

i appreciate every little bit !!!

i wanted to tell you the tale of making of this album

i guess i found in my lap one year into writing it a complete heartbreak album . kinda surprised how thoroughly i had documented this in pretty much accurate emotional chronology .... like 3 songs before a break up and three after . so the anthropologist in me sneaked in and i decided to share them as such . first i was worried it would be too self indulgent but then i felt it might make it even more universal . and hopefully the songs could be a help , a crutch to others and prove how biological this process is : the wound and the healing of the wound . psychologically and physically . it has a stubborn clock attached to it .

there is a way out

and then a magic thing happened to me : as i lost one thing something else entered . alejandro contacted me late summer 2013 and was interested in working with me . it was perfect timing . to make beats to the songs would have taken me 3 years ( like on vespertine ) but this enchanted arca would visit me repeatedly and only few months later we had a whole album !!! it is one of the most enjoyable collaboration i have had !

i then went ahead and wrote string and choir arrangements and recorded them in iceland

and whom else to lure into singing with me my worship-of-love-song "atom dance " than my goddess of love : antony ?

towards the end of the album i started looking around for a mixing engineer and was introduced by a mutual friend of ours , robin carolan to the haxan cloak . he mixed the album and also made a beat for one half of "family" . together with chris elms the engineer we kinda formed a band during the mixing process and this is the album we made !!!

i do hope you enjoy it

i would like to thank this overqualified little team ( where roles often blurred )

. i also would like to thank robin , his generous approvals gave me more courage to complete this as is .

and my group of songswapping / dj friends : the right tune can truly cure : ta for those sonic ointments

but most of all i would like to thank my team : james merry , derek birkett and emma birkett . rosemary and elisa . this album could not have been done without you

Bjork breaks-up.

Based on this post she seems like she's in a very happy place now!

Yep! Nicely written as well, thanks for sharing that W.

And very proud of this album.

somewhere she posted a big list of thanks & shout-outs to inspirations too (Lotic, Kelela, Leif, Mykki Blanco, Micachu, etc)

^ Yeah, on the last page of the booklet there's a hand-written note thanking friends and family. She also mentions Dave & Amber from DP, Leila Arab, Matthew Herbert, Krampfhaft, Zach from Death Grips, and of course the album collaborators.

Massive interview, read:

http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/9582-the-invisible-woman-a-conversation-with-bjork/

I have nothing against Kanye West. Help me with this—I’m not dissing him—this is about how people talk about him. With the last album he did, he got all the best beatmakers on the planet at the time to make beats for him. A lot of the time, he wasn’t even there. Yet no one would question his authorship for a second. If whatever I’m saying to you now helps women, I’m up for saying it. For example, I did 80% of the beats on Vespertine and it took me three years to work on that album, because it was all microbeats—it was like doing a huge embroidery piece. Matmos came in the last two weeks and added percussion on top of the songs, but they didn’t do any of the main parts, and they are credited everywhere as having done the whole album. (Matmos’) Drew (Daniel) is a close friend of mine, and in every single interview he did, he corrected it. And they don’t even listen to him. It really is strange.

good quote

When I met M.I.A., she was moaning about this, and I told her, “Just photograph yourself in front of the mixing desk in the studio, and people will go, ‘Oh, OK! A woman with a tool, like a man with a guitar.’” Not that I’ve done that much myself, but sometimes you’re better at giving people advice than doing it yourself. I remember seeing a photo of Missy Elliott at the mixing desk in the studio and being like, a-ha!

that interview is great and in many places, heartbreaking

I played this on my Grados while I was falling asleep and it was really good. I think the last time I listened to music w/ headphones in bed in the dark was like idk 15 years ago. I am really into this album so far.

Roz otm. And it sheds a different light on what was perceived as cliche lyrics imho.

'Quicksand' segued right into 'Hunter' on my iTunes and it sounded pretty seamless.

loving this album so far, especially the cohesive, relatively limited sound palette.

really excited for this based on the thread so far

This album is great. It's like a compelling science fiction movie, a human, hurt and stranded in this exotic alien landscape, crying out for help. It's pretty (cliche though the term may be) brave to announce it's a break-up album and also offer lyrics that are specifically, and unambiguously, about the break-up. There's very little unpacking or decoding needed, just close listening, which is (imo) a quality that Bjork's albums have lacked as of late.

Actually, a couple of other things: how music you can really feel her singing on this, like she's really close to the mic. And how, for all its weirdness, the music has this really ... live feeling to it. Not programmed, and yes arranged, but live, sort of disjointed, yet still really cohesive.

Basically, everyone took 2014 off, since 2015 is already kicking its ass just a couple of weeks in. Especially since the D'Angelo album barely slipped in under the radar and might as well be 2015.

Otm on all of that, especially the live feel to it, I noticed that too, especially in the strings.

fgti how does this sound compared to the leak? do you think its mixed/mastered differently, or just a higher bitrate?

If I may answer that q as well, Stevie D, I'd say the quality/bitrate is better, but the mixing sounds exactly the same. But then I'm no fgti.

fgtibout it

I haven't heard the real version! I'm away from home anyway and can't listen except for earbuds and that's no gauge. It was really the top end of the strings that was making say "huh! that sounds fizzly", and the comparative vocal level on "Quicksand" that made me query.

SO

On first couple listens the lyrics were mostly hitting me with her word choice and the thesis of the whole thing weren't registering. I mean, I got that it was a breakup record but it didn't penetrate, I was too caught up in her word choice and vocabulary. But then the line "every single fuck" on "History Of Touches" really made me stop, because on first listen I thought the line was meant to be a little cruel, but then my opinion changed. She is writing about this breakup with the same professorial academic kind of distance that she wrote "Earth Intruders" and "Triumph" and "Dark Matter" and all those songs where the subject matter is more metaphysical. And that, to me, was suddenly devastating and really turned this album around

Like, that she's maintaining this same clinical lyrical voice while writing about her own heartbreak, it's like being conscious for her own operation or something. I dunno I'm really moved rn

I agree. And as often as it is otherwise her explaining herself on this (p4k interview) has given the lyrics to this an immense depth. The "every single fuck" line is so fucking bare and honest it's shattering me rn

uhhh teared up reading that interview

That quote abt Kanye so otm, I mean, this is a guy who has people writing raps for him, best records ever yes but like I've so many times I've wanted to say or actually said "you know that Bjork knows how to use Protools and she spends most of her life making her records with it, right"

I haven't heard this yet, but am definitely looking forward to hearing it after reading the thread.

Basically, everyone took 2014 off, since 2015 is already kicking its ass just a couple of weeks in.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, January 21, 2015 7:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Judging by the way the ILM poll is looking this year, I'm forgetting about the last year entirely and concentrating on this one!

Like, that she's maintaining this same clinical lyrical voice while writing about her own heartbreak, it's like being conscious for her own operation or something. I dunno I'm really moved rn

― a shitprism, if you will (fgti), Wednesday, January 21, 2015 12:39 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i haven't heard the new record yet but this a great way of putting something that is true i think of a few songs on vespertine ("cocoon") but with restoration and the small magic of letting someone in physically as the themes instead of heartbreak.

Like, that she's maintaining this same clinical lyrical voice while writing about her own heartbreak, it's like being conscious for her own operation or something. I dunno I'm really moved rn

― a shitprism, if you will (fgti), Wednesday, January 21, 2015 7:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a really great way of describing this album, and her delivery as well as the words

ánd the cover - clinical: open heart surgery

this is interesting because I also thought of "cocoon" first, but I wouldn't call it clinical at all (or this)

What a fantastic interview.

It's so rare to see someone put across difficult concepts so clearly, it's like she thinks in paragraphs.

BTW the photo in that article is a screengrab from an upcoming collaboration with Andrew Huang:

http://pitchfork-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/longform/119/bjorktitle.jpg

Andrew Huang is the guy who directed the "Mutual Core" video and worked with Björk on an 3D audio-visual piece for her MoMA retrospective. The song that MoMA comissioned was "Black Lake", so I think it's safe to assume that this image is from the "Black Lake" video.

listening on headphones last night i got the impression this could be a very special album that i would like to take my time finding my way around. the lyrics are very real, maybe realer than she's ever been. i feel like this is the first time she's really shorn away the "björk mythology", and i include her peak work in that.

i also think that as shitty as the leak was, to have this album suddenly dropped into my lap as a whole and with no build-up is maybe the best way to have presented it. i know björk puts a lot of thought into everything surrounding the album but i don't think that build-up of promo would have done this many favours.

^^ Otm. I wonder if there was an extensive promo campaign planned tbh. An album this personal which such a devastating 'story', how do you happily promo that and feed people bits and pieces first? This is the best way: release it in one go, boom.

wasn't björk talking about art exhibition tie-ins and such before the leak? i have no doubt that some very eye-catching and ~unique ways to build hype were planned & i am glad to have been spared them

Me too. And after reading that interview, one could imagine she's relieved as well.

idk, I feel that most of bjork's extramusical (ish) projects since at least biophilia are more deliberate / worth time than she gets credit for. it's weird to give an artist a demerit for innovation, you know? like, if anyone has earned a MoMA retrospective at this point she has

What a fantastic interview.

I agree (cries). It's one of the best. (chokes up)

fuck off

Just poking fun, chill out. It's a lovely interview, very moving, even without the parentheticals.

Was in a bar last night with a friend and we were talking about the new Bjork. A friend of a friend swooped in and was all, oh, are you talking about Jessica's interview!? And I was all, no doofus, you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope, we're talking about the Bjork album, which is why she interviewed her.

yeah i mean as much as it really gave the interview depth it felt weird/pedantic/shady for the interviewer to put [cries] like every time she teared up, though I fully agree it was kind of necessary for context. Like I don't thinks he was actually trying to be a jerk.

i'm not sure how i feel about Q&A interviews like that; you can communicate a lot of great stuff that the artist says without having to chop it up or cut it, but it feels a bit...straightforward, in comparison to writing a feature where you weave the quotes into your own piece (and in which it's easier to comment on an artist's body language or tone without having to write "(cries)").

(i mean, this was a great Q&A interview, obv.)

She mentions how often Bjork teared up in the introduction, which is why it felt a little excessive to me to punctuate each instance. It's very effective, but I did feel a little too much. It is an excerpt from a much larger piece, so I wonder if the full Review version will be formatted differently.

god forbid you feel too much

Yeah, I caught that as soon as I posted i! You can never feel too much.

you have felt too much (tears up)
there was so much real talk in that interview that it could feature audio of them crying together and i wouldn't care

xposts

not trying to insult anyone here (because there's obv a fair share of writers and i'm sure a lot of you have written pieces with interview extracts woven in), but i almost always prefer to just read the artist's full responses. even if they ramble or get off track. in some cases, especially if they ramble or get off track.

i mean i get why writers wouldn't like to do that - you would just turn into a transcriber, and the only real value you're adding is the questions you ask and the direction you try to steer the conversation toward.

anyway, bjork rules, and i'm finally going to listen to this tonight :) :) :)

karl and lech otm

definitely appreciate lex's writer experience take on q&a versus long-form piece.

as a fan i'm just as likely to enjoy a Q&A

as a writer tbqh writing a Q&A feels very lazy and easy

The interviews I done as Q&As, I'd always edit the transcription until it read like the respondent was super-erudite, send the forged document to the respondent and say "this read OK to you?" and they'd say "YES!" and we'd go to print

xp yeah but don't you still have to be a good interviewer? I mean that's a skill separate from being a great writer that feels equally impt imo

like I'd reckon you can write a great piece with only a decent or pretty-good interview, but you have to be a really great interviewer to just publish a transcript w/o much writing around it, and that still feels p valid to me

yes that's def another thing, Q&As polish up quotes way more than interview features do

diff q: When yr subject keeps welling up and that, do you really just carry on to your next question?

Or was there a fair bit of "You OK? You want a break, or something?"

(Even if it wasn't Bjork but Henry Rollins, or whatever?)

How do we know that didn't happen?

I know, that's the sort of thing that gets edited out of non-fanzine articles, dunno it seemed to come over a bit "Pushing on, ahem"..

I interpreted that totally differently, like Jess's ability to be compassionate but - well - clinical was the reason Bjork was able to talk about such emotional subject matter.

otm

yep

also she knew she was trustworthy

hard to tell your secrets to someone who you don't 100% trust to understand your pov
she was extremely forthcoming (respectfully so, i'd add) about her experiences in the music business. i don't think she would have been able to talk about that with just anyone either -- aside from the super personal relationship stuff.

In my experience the only real advantage of a Q&A, besides being easier, is that it cuts down on the purple prose of a feature. It also cuts out a lot of other first person distractions. "It's a cold day when I see Bjork smiling, lost in a daydream, skipping down the street, a latte in one hand and an unspooled yo-yo dragging behind her, like a reluctant puppy on a leash. I wonder if I should approach her and introduce myself, or if I should just let her reach the meeting point a block away. " Etc. It can go either way.

still processing this but just wanted to say that Antony is really unwelcome on this, and I say this as someone who normally doesn't mind her singing. idk it's just such a personal record where every song feels like a fraction of a larger piece, that bringing in another voice in the middle like that is just unnecessarily distracting.

wouldn't it be weird if i had no idea what i was talking about

Jessica Hopper
‏@jesshopp
@mollylambert Edited out: I cried overtime she cried and also, I cried asking the third question, I cried listening to the album, too.

I really love the part where Antony comes in! Maybe I'll change my mind over time, but it's good.

just wanna point out how fucking tense and electric the vocal harmony at 3:50 in "Family" is

like how do you even do that? is she harmonizing w/ some other instrument?

that part really stuck out to me too. i think it's just some intense close harmony...could have been pitch-shifted electronically to make things really exact, but i'll bet she sung it.

dug out telegram today as not heard it in years expecting lots of time stamped beats etc,
but nope, it sounded absolutely brilliant.

really looking forward to this album now that i don't need a f*cking tablet/apple gadget to enjoy it.

I liked the Antony cameo. It was not unlike her harmonizing with the processed versions of herself (which this album has, right? I've only had a chance to listen to it once or so.)

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6450345/how-bjorks-team-handled-vulnicura-leak-behind-the

Can you actually buy this anywhere other than on iTunes right now?

I got it on Amazon, it was up in the evening on whatever day iTunes put it up.

Apparently it's also available through Google Play.

Heard it before knowing what it was about or having the lyrics, was underwhelmed - another gorgeous production but no discernible melodies in her singing.

Now, with the lyrics and the context, it's been turned into something else entirely. I'm still not whistling any of the melodies, but I don't mind anymore. It's her cathartic expression and it's quite impressive. Is it a good album? Define good.

I do miss her melodies :(

So many melodies on here! It's in the strings mahn

i meant poppy melodies a la "Alarm Call" and "I Miss You" and all of that

I think this will be on Spotify tomorrow (Friday)...

good news! for the consumer at least

not on deezer yet.

So many dottirs on this album

It's kind of interesting to listen to this Bjork after the wave of FKA Twigs, Dawn Richard, even some Beyonce and other cyber R&B. I wonder if that will be one of her more prominent musical legacies, as a harbinger of this sort of strange, herky jerk electro pop?

She's too singular to have a legacy.

Just poking fun, chill out. It's a lovely interview, very moving, even without the parentheticals.

Was in a bar last night with a friend and we were talking about the new Bjork. A friend of a friend swooped in and was all, oh, are you talking about Jessica's interview!? And I was all, no doofus, you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope, we're talking about the Bjork album, which is why she interviewed her.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, January 22, 2015 10:26 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is outdated as fuck ideology in 2015 the album rollout is just as important as the actual content

She's too singular to have a legacy.

― Tay-Tay Brooklynpants (Murgatroid)

Oddly true.

And it's a shame that we don't have more electronic and pop artists that think in more ambitious, orchestral terms. It would be a joy to have more pop and electronic artists performing at opera houses.

this is outdated as fuck ideology in 2015 the album rollout is just as important as the actual content

Years ago, actual exchange overheard at a concert the day the Pixies released that "Bam Thwok" song:

Dude 1: Have you heard the new Pixies song?
Dude 2: No, is it any good?
Dude: No. I mean, I haven't heard it, but I heard it's no good.

Fuck an album rollout.

Wow, I just listened to "Bam Thwok" for the first time in ages. So much better than nu Pixies.

idk usually albums coming out is the excuse for a tour and uh I guess you could constantly release songs and roll them into your sets one or two at a time but that isn't a thing across the board. usually one or two new songs in a set means they're trying out unreleased material.

didn't really realize this got released...I'll have to...try it out and order the vinyl.

^ The physical versions still arrive in March.

glenn?

Writing thinkpieces/articles/reviews abt Vulnicura seems to be this week's hot new thing but I think this one takes the cake; like if you are gonna read 1 thing abt the album read this one

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2015/01/21/378862154/bjorks-vulnicura-an-inquiry-into-melodrama

And it's a shame that we don't have more electronic and pop artists that think in more ambitious, orchestral terms. It would be a joy to have more pop and electronic artists performing at opera houses.

Esko, Emika, Koreless, and DJ Rupture come to mind as producers who are doing work in that sphere. Not a lot of it is on record though.

This very morning I bought tickets for James Holden, Luke Abbott and Koreless at the Barbican. I think they're playing Terry Riley (or Riley-influenced stuff at least).

"a refreshingly insightful and brilliantly written piece..this writer is a class act." - Bjork

This album sounds so much better in high quality, it's still sinking in but I can already tell I'm going to keep coming back to it.

I like this record, more than the last few.

city centers all sold out in less than an hour

that is a fantastic piece

I'm, like, really grateful that I'm going to have this album ready next time I break up w/ someone.

Man, I better hold off listening to this then.

Yeah, sorry, I must have misread a database value. Not sure what the Spotify plan is for this.

interrrresting. may buy over the weekend then.

I'm, like, really grateful that I'm going to have this album ready next time I break up w/ someone.

― Jennifer 8.-( (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, January 23, 2015 11:35 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sad lol. i'm avoiding listening to this right away because of an almost-break-up last year.

Writing thinkpieces/articles/reviews abt Vulnicura seems to be this week's hot new thing but I think this one takes the cake; like if you are gonna read 1 thing abt the album read this one

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2015/01/21/378862154/bjorks-vulnicura-an-inquiry-into-melodrama

― Jennifer 8.-( (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, January 23, 2015 11:19 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

writing reviews about an album that just came out, imagine

(that said this piece is phenomenal, by far the best thing I have read or am going to read)

Katherine I read yours this morning and it was also v good!

I think though that this album is SO straightforward and there were such big events surrounding it that most everything I've read has been different combinations of "It leaked and then was immediately released, bypassing Bjork's typical elaborate album rollouts, and it is about a breakup and it is very visceral, it's pretty string-heavy and evokes Vespertine." I don't think that's a criticism per se but just an observation: there isn't a lot to ~unpack~ I guess so I was kind of like "whoa" when Ann Powers went into things like melodrama and femininity and referenced other texts. It was a p big leap and I think it worked really well!

though tbh I rarely read different several different reviews/articles abt the same album like I am doing w/ "Vulnicura" so for all I know that could be a somewhat typical framework, idk!

I don't think it's thaaaat straightforward!

just snagged a pair of orchestra seats for this; figured i only get so many chances to see her and this qualifies as worth the money

katherine your review was v good too

disagree that there's not a lot to unpack -- in particular I want to read someone with more nuanced/in-depth knowledge on arrangements on this album

(also thanks!)

God, 'Black Lake' is devastating, that recurring violin melody.

This is really getting under my skin now, the bits that aren't slow and mournful are actually incredibly violent sounding, there are points on Notget and Mouth Mantra when the strings and the beats/bass sound like they're battling one another.

Pretty sure I saw her walking down !anhaatan Ave in Greenpoint last night

No that was me sry

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/the-peculiar-genius-of-bjork-vulnicura-moma/?_r=0

NY Times profile

this record is so fucking dense. barely know which way is up

i also like how it starts off in a relatively spare place and gets increasingly cluttered like plants growing over a fire pit

Ugh, used to really enjoy Rich Juzwiak's work in the past but his stuff over the past few years has been such garbage

http://defamer.gawker.com/both-sides-never-the-partial-narrative-of-bjorks-break-1681793708

Will this be eventually available on Spotify?

How many people who rushed to praise this work last week when Björk sopped up its leak with a digital rush-release will still be listening to it in a month? A week? Tomorrow?

asking the urgent qs

i'll admit the lyric pull-quotes don't do much for me, and in general i've found break-up concept albums to be a slog, but the gawker piece makes the mistake of extrapolating a lack of sympathy for the artist's pain due to a lack of affection for the work. if you're going to demand humility from the artist, you need to show some yourself.

imo if you're making art to express your personal feelings, you can do all the venting you want and don't need to justify your emotions

but by the same logic, a critic should be able to express their personal disinterest, and wouldn't need to justify that feeling

fwiw the Matthew Barney work I've seen and enjoyed the most would be either his short videos (pop art compared to the drudging films) and his collaboration with Bjork, which she really deserved equal credit for

Think back to the truth bombs on Marvin Gaye's acidic Here, My Dear

that's his contrast

but by the same logic, a critic should be able to express their personal disinterest, and wouldn't need to justify that feeling

i don't think this is the same logic bc in order to be a critic you need to justify your feelings

The dandelion-esque headpieces that she used on the Biophilia tour - and that will continue to make an appearance if Vulnicura's cover is any indication - are so cool. Is there any article focused solely on them? They look like glass or plastic but they're flexible so she doesn't break them with the mic or something.

yeah i don't think he even does that good a job of investigating why the album leaves him cold - the reference points seem tossed off

xpost yeah you're right

if you don't justify disinterest, then why the fuck write an article?

the prob here is that the justification for Juzwiak's distaste for the music is its lack of poppiness that Homogenic/Post had, and he doesn't mention whether he still listens to Biophilia or any other recent albums that also have a more narrative goal

I think he's getting at a disinterest in the music and a distaste for the lyrics, which are two diff things

the "you're right" was re: a critic's need to justify, to be clear.

"Stonemilker" is legitimately lovely, even if its jogging beat is reminiscent of "Chariots of Fire"

Wut? Chariots of Fire is bona fide amazing.

what i was trying to get at in response to this

imo if you're making art to express your personal feelings, you can do all the venting you want and don't need to justify your emotions

is that critics can't gauge art on its success in expressing personal feelings - there's no way for anyone but bjork to know if she pulled that off. she herself might look back on the album in five years and think she failed on some level. critics can only describe their degree of engagement with the work. And yes, they should put more effort into explaining and investigating their feelings, but part of how they do that is by suggesting why they liked some similar works more. and it's not wrong to say you prefer break-up albums that show more critical distance and self-reflection. and i can't say whether rich is right or wrong or missing the boat to find it lacking on that front as i haven't heard the album, but i do think he stepped too presumptuously into "my disappointment with bjork as a person" rather than "my disappointment with vulnicura as the new bjork album"

and after the pfork interview, now isn't the time to suggest a disappointment with bjork as a person

Carl Wilson: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2015/01/bjork_s_new_album_vulnicura_reviewed.html

How many people who rushed to praise this work last week when Björk sopped up its leak with a digital rush-release will still be listening to it in a month? A week? Tomorrow?

I know, right? About the only things I know I'll be listening to in a month are "Tusk" and "Zeppelin IV."

just ironic for any blogger to make that kind of "fools rush in" comment

i love carl's work normally and i could not make it past paragraph two in that piece

If it were fashion, Vulnicura just wouldn't be wearable.

"that alone seems fishy"

I don't know the answer about Spotify. I initially misread a status flag as "available in all regions" when it actually meant "available in no regions", so I actually never had any information on this. I hope so, and given that all her other stuff is up, I assume so...

The dandelion-esque headpieces that she used on the Biophilia tour - and that will continue to make an appearance if Vulnicura's cover is any indication - are so cool. Is there any article focused solely on them? They look like glass or plastic but they're flexible so she doesn't break them with the mic or something.

They're by a Japanese artist called Maiko Takeda.
http://www.maikotakeda.com/
http://maichanmo.tumblr.com/

Here are the ladies:

http://40.media.tumblr.com/e58520b81b89eec7bdd76b03e5336174/tumblr_msifqz1V1f1rhhap5o1_500.jpg

"indulgent" is possibly my least favorite adjective used to describe art -- like, what's its antonym? half-assed?

For the people, man.
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/01/31/arts/20140131seeger-adv-obit-slide-9WAT/20140131seeger-adv-obit-slide-9WAT-jumbo.jpg

i'd say 'restrained'

but there's really no countering 'indulgent' in the sense of 'shit i don't like'

The dandelion-esque headpieces that she used on the Biophilia tour - and that will continue to make an appearance if Vulnicura's cover is any indication - are so cool. Is there any article focused solely on them? They look like glass or plastic but they're flexible so she doesn't break them with the mic or something.
They're by a Japanese artist called Maiko Takeda.
http://www.maikotakeda.com/
http://maichanmo.tumblr.com/

― mthrn, Tuesday

TY!

Wow some seriously cool projects in there!

rmde at "one-sided" which both Juzwiak and that Slate piece go in for

There are some tracks here that make me wish I was somewhere else on the album. There are tracks that make me wish I was anywhere else but this album. And then there are tracks that make me feel trapped within this album.

Amazing album.

not so much vulnicura, but immediate bjorkiness
https://soundcloud.com/desired-constellations

Constellations is the debut recording from Karl Latham - Ryan Carniaux - Mark Egan with special guest Nick Rolfe featuring their creative interpretations of the music from Icelandic pop star Björk. On this 74+ min. highly adventurous improvisational outing the group draws from a wide palette of influences ranging from Miles Davis Live-Evil to open ended impressionistic variations.
Karl Latham has performed with artists including Don Braden, Joel Frahm, Andy Snitzer, Claudio Roditi, Clark Terry, Joe Lovano, Michal Urbaniak, Johnny Winter and Unit 1 with John Hart and Mark Egan.
Mark Egan is one of the most well known contemporary bassists know for his work with the Pat Metheny Group, Gil Evans, Elements, Sting, Joan Osborn, John McLaughlin and Marc Cohen, among others.
Ryan Carniaux has performed with Dave Liebman, Jerry Bergonzi, Wolfgang Lackerschmid, Mark Murphy and Benny Golson.
Nick Rolfe has appeared with Slide Hampton, Roy Hargrove Lizz Wright, India Arie and Nona Hendryx.

still processing this but just wanted to say that Antony is really unwelcome on this, and I say this as someone who normally doesn't mind her singing. idk it's just such a personal record where every song feels like a fraction of a larger piece, that bringing in another voice in the middle like that is just unnecessarily distracting.

― Roz, Thursday, January 22, 2015 6:56 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with this, though i think "atom dance" breaks the spell of the album way before antony shows up - "stonemilker" through to "notget" is so spellbinding and emotionally intense, it feels like it tells a full story in that cycle already. "atom dance" doesn't add to it for me, it actually brings back unwanted memories of biophilia. "mouth mantra" is amazing but i could take or leave "quicksand" so this album's pretty much about its first two-thirds for me. what a two-thirds though - that first beat on "family" like a rock falling into your stomach, this realisation that all these attempts to keep something going via careful and beautiful pacing and analysis have been for nothing.

"Notget" is what disrupts the spell for me. What I like about they way Antony's used on "Atom Dance" is that, for a good while, I thought it was Bjork's own voice slowed down.

Still sort of figuring out "Quicksand." Such a terse conclusion.

"notget" is the incredible moment of catharsis for me, the most urgent-sounding song here

I'm just sort of PTSD from the time it jarred me out of my trance when I was half-asleep listening to the album on headphones.

Atom Dance is crucial to the flow of the album IMO, this kind of glimmer of light that then gets shattered. And it needs a second voice as well, I low how warped and fucked with his vocal is, also the huge bass bomb that hits for the first time at the he same moment Antony appears.

see, my pick would be history of touches

it's like a snuff film

(uh, that would be "my pick" as in "my pick for the moment of catharsis" not "my pick for the moment of YOU RUINED IT")

oh i get what you mean but if "history of touches" is where the realisation happens, "notget" is where the purging happens maybe?

i know shes wonderful but bjork really does inspire a lot of terrible writing doesnt she?! could barely get through that observer piece on her at the weekend. and i gave up on the intro to the P4K interview too and just went straight through to the main Q&A. i might start a bjork pseuds corner thread.

Whoa here's the physical product cover art

http://cdn4.pitchfork.com/news/58704/f5d7ae38.jpg

jeeeeezus, that feels like a 4chan mockup

thats a vagina

Flashing back, for some reason, on that Britney Spears bear rug sculpture.

promethean vagina

i want to own that

I want a life size sculpture version to put in my living room

Love it

Is this out for PS1 or Sega Saturn?

The MOMA thing will be amazing and disgusting. If I can't buy a replica all is full of love mask a la sleep no more I will burn the place down

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Björk Show at MoMA Is Bad, Really Bad

Hyperallergic also panned it, although maybe they would have appreciated it more if any of the people in the dialogue were familiar with her work: http://hyperallergic.com/187375/what-just-happened-the-bjork-experience-at-moma/

guardian review was written by a long-time björk fan and also panned it http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/04/bjork-moma-review-strangely-unambitious-hotchpotch

i mean...the blurb and premise around the retrospective never exactly made it sound essential or anything other than a promotional tool; and given the quality of the music she's released it feels like it's redundant but that this is also irrelevant

Now that I think about it, this may be more of a show for fans of creepy mannequins than it is for fans of Björk.

i have to admit, this kind of got me interested

i spose i will see the exhib if anyone wants to ride my membership in as guest

http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xfa1/t51.2885-15/e15/11032847_431365420370843_372817948_n.jpg

The tour kicked off yesterday in Carnegie Hall. The band is Arca, Manu Delago (hang player from the Biophilia tour) and a 15-piece string ensemble (Alarm Will Sound). She played a two-part set with an intermission. In the first act the backdrop was an animated music score with lyrics, and in the second one videos of snails and insects. Duh. The setlist:

01 Stonemilker
02 Lionsong
03 History of Touches
04 Black Lake
05 Family
06 Notget

07 Pleasure Is All Mine
08 Come to Me
09 Undo
10 I See Who You Are
11 Quicksand
12 Mouth Mantra

13 Harm of Will
14 Wanderlust

Also, Björk explains why Vulnicura is not available on Spotify yet:

We’re all making it up as it goes, to be honest. I would like to say there’s some master plan going on [with the album release], but there isn’t. But a few months ago I emailed my manager and said, “Guess what? This streaming thing just does not feel right. I don’t know why, but it just seems insane.” To work on something for two or three years and then just, Oh, here it is for free. It’s not about the money; it’s about respect, you know? Respect for the craft and the amount of work you put into it. But maybe Netflix is a good model. You go first to the cinema and after a while it will come on Netflix. Maybe that’s the way to go with streaming. It’s first physical and then maybe you can stream it later.

yeah fair enough

That bloke with the hearing aid needs to button up his shirt.

Funny how when Taylor Swift went on her anti-Spotify tirade I was rolling my eyes, but when Bjork made her statement, I'm like, "ok, sounds reasonable"

I wonder how much the setlist will change from show to show

My only disappointment is that there's nothing from Homogenic there, but I'm sure I'll cope.

Funny how when Taylor Swift went on her anti-Spotify tirade I was rolling my eyes, but when Bjork made her statement, I'm like, "ok, sounds reasonable"

― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Monday, March 9, 2015 1:44 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

despite them saying pretty much the same thing

TS removed alll her albums, Bjork is only saying she'll like to release the new one after the non-stream release without removing the old ones that are available in there

no ripping corners off paintings in Bjork's statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWHpoJT3qK4

Whoa that video weirded me out

this album is v v good btw

bjork's rapper hands >>>>>

So awesome. So weird. Bjork keep Bjorking.

Any ILXors at the Brooklyn show tonight?

I'm gonna be at the one next Wednesday. Flipping out excited.

You should be, it's fucking great. at the intermission now

Dying.

Eric I am gonna miss you by two days :(

If only we had something sad to listen to to mark the bitter missed connection...

How long are you in NY?

Only two days. Plus I'm with my sisters. Hoping to get to Philly soon tho.

Album is really good. Pretty awesome coming after two less than great albums (Volta and Biophilia).

Three really, tho I've been coming around a lot on Biophilia.

Yeah, Biophilia is definitely worth trying again if it initially turned you away a few years ago.

Medulla is my favorite of her albums.

Some new stuff:

- the "Stonemilker" video shot in 360° (best viewed on a mobile device but you can rotate it in your browser as well)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQEyezu7G20

- the "Black Lake" video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGn1pJIpZw8

- the first part of Vulnicura remixes is here:

"Notget" remixed by Lotic (https://soundcloud.com/bjork/notget-lotic-keptsafe-version-1/s-Mg2nc)
"Family" remixed by Katie Gately (https://soundcloud.com/bjork/family-remix-by-katie-gately-1/s-Mg2nc)
"Lionsong" remixed by Mica Levi (https://soundcloud.com/bjork/lionsong-kareokieijd-remix-by-mica-levi/s-Mg2nc)
"History of Touches" remixed by Krampfhaft (https://soundcloud.com/bjork/history-of-touches-krampfhaft-remix/s-Mg2nc)

those videos were at the heart of the moma show methinks
kinda into the mica levi remix

The "Black Lake" video is pretty good, but it was really all about the 360-degree sound mix in that little black room.

I was going to go to the MoMA show this past weekend but then didn't. I did, however, get to see the "Stonemilker" video w/ an Oculus Rift headset and I think my friend and I both cried. It was powerful beyond words tbh.

I am liking these much, much more than Part 1

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/25144/1/bjork-s-vulnicura-remixed-part-2

I think the MoMA show finished a few weeks ago.

http://pitchfork.com/news/61500-bjork-to-release-all-strings-version-of-vulnicura-shares-new-take-on-lionsong/

Oh wow.

I have zero interest in hearing this album w/o its cold, fractured Homogenicy beats.

Like judging by "Lionson", this sounds pretty close to how the album already sounds except with a few of the crucial counterbalances removed. Why bother?

At least partly curious to hear what "Quicksand" and "Atom Dance" sound like with string only.

(Looks like she didn't bother with "History Of Touches.)

I have zero interest in hearing this album w/o its cold, fractured Homogenicy beats.

― Ina-Garten-Da-Vida (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, October 6, 2015 12:29 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this doesn't sound so much like radical new versions as slightly incomplete versions

at least that first track does; i had a hard time telling what had changed.

Shame, the strings really need to be doing more if this is going to work.

Alternate versions of albums are what Bjork does, no? Do you want the studio album, the live version of the album, the 5.1 surround sound version, the remix album, the DVD, or the box set with alternate versions?

I naively thought this album might be the one where she'd quit with that crap.

Alternate versions of albums arerinsing her fans for every last penny is what Bjork does, no?

*clutches live box set*

xps of course live/alternate/remix versions of an album are what she does; I actually don't really mind this because they're usually reworked or rearranged enough to warrant the release but as lex said these just sound incomplete. It just doesn't make sense.

Now the live album I might consider buying, if only for the "All Neon Like" cover (not confirmed if it's part of the set or not; no tracklist available):

http://www.roughtrade.com/albums/98638

You're very unlikely to be able to hear those songs live in general I'd suspect, given she basically canned the 2015 tour because she couldn't cope with performing them.

There's that too, although tbth her live renditions hewed very close to the recorded versions.

that was my experience

yeah it's true. It was like that w/ Biophilia Live as well, no? The older tracks got some reworkings, though ("All Neon Like" was wonderful)

"All Neon Like" and "Come To Me" were the two huge highlights at my show.

just decided to listen to this for the first time, this is really excellent!

I was kind of indifferent/not paying attention to this up until it hit "Notget", which I'm finding to be amazing.

Forest Sword's extended mix of Stonemilker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz0wtOIqSU4