Bjork

Bjork holds a special place in my heart. I remember my life took a different path when Lisa let me borrow Bjork’s Homogenic album. Sure I’d heard her songs before: “Army of Me” was an early favourite though I recall that Jon and I both had watched her “Unplugged” special on MuchMusic one day and we thought it as quite bizarre.

But “Homogenic” was a windfall to my impressionable musical mind. Here was a contemporary female artist who wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of her sound. In a time when “pop music” was gaining influence on the charts again it was refreshing to hear something so original and non-fabricated. It’s hard to disagree that there aren’t many who sound like Bjork, if anyone at all. I mention once again the fantastic article on Salon from last September – All Hail The Ice Queen for reference.

When I moved into residence in first year, I listened to a lot of Bjork. Primarily I listened to Homogenic. Perhaps it was the roots of my interest in “underground music” like house or hip hop or trip hop or other miscellaneous categories that caused me to listen to this album so much. I know it annoyed Jon (my roommate in a very small double room) that I listened to it so much. Eventually I managed to obtain the other albums in Bjork’s oeuvre (Debut, Post, Telegram, etc.) and was astonished at how much this singer had grown musically over the years. I searched for live recordings of Bjork’s shows and managed to find a few and the concerts seemed very special to be a part of.

In the summer of 2001, I was hotly anticipating Bjork’s newest album, Vespertine. I would search frantically for sources before the official release date. I found one source but it ended up being in a different track order than the final cut. It didn’t matter though, I had a chance to listen to the new songs. To say that I was impressed would be quite the understatement. Here was the most intimate, personal album that I’ve ever heard. I couldn’t get enough of this album. I listened to it at work, in the car, at home, everywhere. Vespertine let me crawl into my own “hidden place”; my work situation was spiralling out of control at the time and things looked very bleak financially. When the CD came out in the stores, I bought it.

Four years ago now, Bjork starred in a movie – Dancer In The Dark. It took me a while to watch it but I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed it though it was depressingly sad at the end. It was a quirky film – half serious drama, half humourous musical. Bjork did the soundtrack, also part of my collection. It was nice to see Bjork branching into new areas but she admitted that she’ll never do another film again. She was too nervous.

The SwanIt’s unfortunate that people most associate Bjork with her swan costume at the Academy Awards three years ago. Even during Bjork’s performance at the opening ceremonies in Athens 10 days ago, the commentators on the air mentioned this fact. It’s like they don’t know how to cubbyhole Bjork’s sound so they mention her eccentricities. That’s disappointing to me, but I can’t expect everyone to like Bjork.

For Christmas last year I received a couple of Bjork’s DVDs. One is a taping of a concert that was part of the Vespertine tour and the other is an archive of her videos. I watched the concert DVD one night while Marcy was in London2. It was a fantastic show and I could feel the crowd and Bjork’s energy through the TV. It was really something special to witness. Someday I’ll go see her in concert but not if she continues to charge upwards of $60 per show.

That brings us to today. The picture at the top is the cover of Bjork’s new album, Medulla. I read this morning on Boing Boing that Bjork approves of music sharing on the Internet.

Q: So Bjork is not superstitious then?

A: “You know, its ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the internet comes along and fucks everything up.” Bjork gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. “God bless the internet,” she adds. Q: And what about you, then? A: “I’ll still be there, waving a pirate flag.”

That’s interesting but more importantly to me was the news that she has a new album coming out next week. I’ve become so out-of-the-loop in terms of music lately that I didn’t even know that there was a new album in the works, let alone being released next week. I listened to it this morning and it’s very different from past material. Gone are the techno sounds and pretty much any musical accompaniment. Singers are the only accompaniment in a lot of the songs. Medulla of course means:

The inner core of certain organs or body structures, such as the marrow of bone.

so perhaps this album is her “inner core” musically.

Bjork has set up an interesting-looking mini-site for the album that I’ll have to explore further at some point. For now I’ll try and absorb as much of this new material as possible and instead of comparing it to previous works like I do with some artists, I’ll appreciate it on its own, for its own merits.

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