Release Date: September 27, 2011
Ambition is fascinating to encounter. It seems the most ambitious projects are taken upon by the most free-spirited beings among us, those who have the ability to allow their inherent personal mysteries to flourish and discover, acknowledge and somehow surpass the limits of the self. It will not take much bending of arms to get music lovers to agree that Björk qualifies as one of these beings.
Four years since her last album release, Björk has returned with her unmistakably brutal force on Biophilia. Featuring numerous specialized instruments, high drama, complex harmonies and time signatures, a Tesla coil, a fusion of science and art, and Björk’s heady lioness voice, the album is nothing if not a work of purely grand art. And oh, yeah, it’s also the world’s first iPad application album, meaning the fusion of science and art is so central to the album’s guts that Björk created 10 apps (one for each track) alongside interactive artist, Scott Snibbe, to further enhance the album’s overall concept and allow listeners to contribute to the creative process.
Take “Virus,” for example, one of the album’s more melodically approachable masterpieces. Featuring the crystal-like clinking of a gameleste, a harp- and xylophonelike instrument specifically created for Biophilia, the piece describes the fatal love story between cell and virus. App users will try to stop the virus’s attack, but this will stop the song from ever finishing; the virus must be allowed to ride out its destiny as the lyrics narrate it. “Like a virus/patient hunter/I’m waiting for you/I’m starving for you … My sweet adversary.”
But interactive app-play apparently was not enough for Björk, a lady who rests on exactly zero laurels. Beyond the apps, each song’s musical structure or theme also corresponds to its title, a scientific phenomenon in some capacity. The album’s mystifying opening track, “Moon,” for example—reminiscent of a slightly more languid Joanna Newsom—operates musically based on cycles and sequences, à la—yep, you got it—Lunar cycles. “Crystalline,” released as the album’s first single, is based on structure itself, featuring dense chords (again on the gameleste) that change frequently as Björk narrates: “Listen how they grow.” “Dark Matter” plays with musical particles via scales, resulting in gothic and bafflingly complex melodies that vibrate over low, muted, and quaky organ tones. “Thunderbolt” is where the Tesla coil comes into play with real captured lightning.
Produced entirely by Björk herself (minus one collaboration with 16bit on “Crystalline”), Biophilia is not so much an entirely listenable album as it is a hallmark of gall and the type of creativity that only can be harvested by the most brave, intelligent and wonderfully childlike among us.
The woman deserves to be praised relentlessly for these qualities, and she has been thus far in her career. In an era that bullies technology for destroying the album as a conceptual work of art, Björk marches on full-steam ahead whether you’re with her or not.
Since the woman is nuts enough to take on a 17/8 time signature on this album more than once, maybe give in to her just a little bit and see what you discover. Her Biophilia virus must be allowed to ride out its destiny, right? Just try to leave the swan dress behind for now. You can at least try.
Björk – Biophilia tracklist:
- “Moon”
- “Thunderbolt”
- “Crystalline”
- “Cosmogony”
- “Dark Matter”
- “Hollow”
- “Virus”
- “Sacrifice”
- “Mutual Core”
- “Solstice”
