Bjork - The ice chanteuse

Elf, ice princess, pixie, cartoon character, video-game heroine. Björk Gudmundsdóttir from Reykjavik, Iceland, has been saddled with all manner of fanciful labels over the course of her career. A career that made her an alternative-pop star of the Nineties and one of the most bizarre figures in the entertainment world.

I went back to Iceland and lived for a while on top of a mountain, where all I could hear was the crackling of the ice, with the lava fields hissing beneath. It was truly techno.

(Björk)

Then again, Björk (“birch tree” in Icelandic) has always loved excess. She has long played the part of the diva, with her tantrums and eccentric looks. She has amassed crowds of hysterical fans. And that, too, nearly caused her to fall apart. It all came to a head in 1996, “the year of the crash”. In Bangkok, in the grip of a nervous breakdown, she attacked a television crew that was filming her son Sindri. Then someone sent her a letter bomb, which was miraculously intercepted by police: the sender, an obsessive fan, took his own life shortly afterwards. The shock marked a turning point in her life: “I had to stop, cut out all the crap around me,” she recalls. “That's why I went back to Iceland and lived for a while on top of a mountain, where all I could hear was the crackling of the ice. It was pitch black, the Northern Lights swirled around a layer of clouds, with the lava fields hissing beneath. It was truly techno...”. Indeed, techno is just one strand of Björk's music. But not only that. Dance, pop, trip-hop, house, punk, industrial, funk, soul-jazz: these are just some of the labels critics have tried to pin on her songs.

In truth, Björk's “sound” defies classification. It's a blend of dark beats and electronic keyboards, samples and string symphonies, topped by a one-of-a-kind voice capable of shifting from unrestrained screams and agonised gasps to sensual, Broadway-style trills.

Among the hippies on the ice

“For me, singing has always been something pure, my way of communicating with things,” she recalls. “I've always loved singing in the wind, in the rain, in a snowstorm, over a stream of lava... Me against the elements.” A true force of nature, in other words, one that revealed itself from childhood, when Björk lived with her parents in a hippie commune in Reykjavik: “For a long time I thought it was wonderful. I was always surrounded by people who spent hours and hours telling me stories, joking around and dreaming up improbable collective voyages aboard some great ship. Then, when I was about seven or eight, I finally asked them: 'Why don't you actually do something?' From that moment on, I became hyperactive. And I developed an iron will.”

The first time I was truly proud of myself was when I played a piece of mine on the piano at my grandmother's funeral.

(Björk)

So the little ice elf, at just eleven years old, put together an album of daft pop songs that sold seven thousand copies in Iceland, going “platinum”. “But the first time I was truly proud of myself,” she recalls, “was when I played a piece of mine on the piano at my grandmother's funeral.” Then came an early stint in a string of punk bands: at 13 she played in Exodus, at 14 in Tappi Tíkarrass, at 18 in KUKL; then, in 1987, she founded the Sugarcubes together with Þór Eldon (her ex-husband and Sindri's father), giving rise to danceable, enjoyable pop with no great pretensions, whose manifesto (and sole hit) was the 1987 single “Birthday”.

Her solo career is one continuous acceleration toward stardom. After Gling-Glo, a collection of Icelandic standards, it's in 1993 with Debut that her first great international success arrives. With this album, Bjork coins a new pop formula, poised between techno and the avant-garde, capable of captivating both club regulars and indie-rock devotees alike. The credit goes to songs that are consistently powerful and vividly imaginative, sensual and bewitching from the very first notes. Just listen to the upbeat rush of "Crying" or the sinuous ballad "Big Time Sensuality", the magical nursery-rhyme of "Venus As A Boy" or the obsessive pulse of "Violently Happy" (almost a manifesto of the Icelandic singer's untamed exuberance), the soft-edged "Human Behaviour" or the dark march of the gorgeous "Play Dead". A dazzling debut, in short: twelve songs bound together by superb arrangements and by a voice that's already unmistakable, capable of sudden shifts in register, of playing sweetly before clambering up twisting paths inaccessible to most.

The sounds are predominantly electronic, cold and icy, but Bjork also pulls out surprise acoustic instruments, like the harp that accompanies the ethereal "Like Someone In Love" or the saxophone that toys with hypnotizing the listener on "The Anchor Song". The album's secret also lies in the perfect blend of rhythms and melodies, of sounds and noises, of simple harmonic structures and consistently eccentric, disorienting arrangements.

For Bjork, it's the start of a worldwide success later crowned by the MTV award for Best Female Artist (1995), two Brit Awards for Best Female Singer, and some ten million records sold across the globe. For once, though, commercial triumph comes paired with near-unanimous critical acclaim.

The following Post (1995) heightens Bjork's experimental streak, with ever more refined and complex sonic architecture. The techno beats grow more muscular and often form the true backbone of the songs — the driving novelty of "I Miss You", the lush dance groove of "Enjoy" (a collaboration with Tricky), the dark psychodrama of "Army Of Me" — while other times it's the melody that takes flight, drawing on near-symphonic arrangements (the aching "Isobel"), or even swing revivalism, as in the disorienting "It's Oh So Quiet" (an old number recorded by actress/singer Betty Hutton), almost a tribute from Bjork to her love of Broadway. Yet the Icelandic singer-songwriter also keeps exploring the primal spirit of Nature, bringing back the harp and live-captured field sounds on "Cover Me" or using her voice onomatopoeically on "Zing Boom".

Musically more varied and polished than the debut, Post nonetheless fails to renew its exuberance and cohesion, getting lost at times in a touch of self-indulgence and losing, here and there, the thread that Debut had managed to sustain from start to finish. Bjork, in any case, confirms herself as an artist who has now matured, fully in command of her chief instrument (her voice) and at ease across the most varied musical territories.

I've always thought that our nervous system, if amplified, would produce the sound of a violin, a viola or a cello.

(Björk)

Violins and sensuality

After the inevitable remix album (Telegram, 1996), her musical career, forever accompanied by a host of sound professionals (from Howie B. to Tricky, from Goldie to Mark Bell), reaches its peak in 1997 with Homogenic: a dark, romantic record built around sampling, electronic beats, dissonances and string chords. "I love strings," Bjork has said, "and I've always thought that our nervous system, if amplified, would produce the sound of a violin, a viola or a cello". Just listen to the aching symphony of "Bachelorette", a sort of even darker, more dramatic take on Portishead-style trip-hop, as well as an essay in unrestrained sensuality: "I'm a fountain of blood, my love, in the shape of a girl". A sensuality that Bjork calls "outrageously greedy", matched by an equally unrestrained appetite (she can even eat whole raw steaks!).

As confirmation that Homogenic is an extraordinary record, it's worth noting that five of its ten tracks were also released as singles. There's "Bachelorette" itself, "Joga", an extraordinary blend of violins, cellos and high-tech production dominated by her crystalline contralto, "Hunter", another brilliant thriller-score in the vein of "Play Dead", "Alarm Call", an obsessive, magnetic techno ballad, and the more melodic, radiant "All Is Full Of Love", produced by Howie B.

The other tracks are no less impressive, though, with special mention going to the bizarre technological experiment of "Pluto", the majestic arrangements of "Unravel", and the electronic dissonances of "5 Years".

In Iceland, Bjork becomes an institutional figure. Prime Minister David Oddsson promises to grant her lifetime use of the small state-owned island of Ellidaey, noting that "Bjork has done far more than most of her compatriots to make Iceland famous". And the artist herself, perpetually migrating between London, Spain (where she recorded Homogenic) and New York, doesn't disown her roots: "We Icelanders are more prone to depression, because we live with so little light. In winter it's dark almost all day, in summer it's not much better. But we've developed a special anti-depressive immunity, of which art is one expression. And we're also the greatest rebels on the planet. That's why we don't have an army: we could never all march to the same beat". Her childhood idol wasn't a rock star, but Albert Einstein. Today, she says she adores the "tropical" novels of Garcia Marquez ("so far from my homeland, yet so close to my sensibility") and the films of Jane Campion, in particular "The Piano", "which every Bjork fan should see". But she has announced she has already abandoned any ambition to act. "My only ambition," she explains, "is music. Only in my recording studio do I feel in my own world, living my dreams, singing and being myself".

I suffered, because I couldn't accept that what was happening to Selma was fiction; to me it was all real. Music is joy, the film was pain.

(Bjork, on "Dancer In The Dark")

In Von Trier's inferno

Playing the lead role in Lars Von Trier's film "Dancer in the Dark" turned out to be something of a "torture" for Bjork. A sacrifice, though, that paid off for her. And handsomely. Few would have predicted that, on her big-screen debut, the Scandinavian singer-songwriter would win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Best Actress. What bewitched the jury was her portrayal of Selma in a film (which also won the Palme d'Or for Best Film) that sits halfway between musical and melodrama: a dark fable that tears the "American dream" to shreds. It's an atypical film in which Bjork sings, dances, loves, suffers and sacrifices herself, in a manner strongly reminiscent of Emily Watson's sacrifice in "Breaking the Waves", the other great success of the Danish director. The relationship between the Icelandic rock star and the "cursed" director of "The Kingdom" was turbulent from the very start. Bjork only wanted to handle the music, but the insatiable Von Trier insisted on capturing her childlike face, with its unmistakable Lapp features, on camera too. And in the end he got his way. But for Bjork, becoming Selma, a young immigrant from Czechoslovakia on the verge of blindness, meant effectively erasing herself: "I suffered, because I couldn't accept that what was happening to her was fiction; to me it was all real. Music is joy, the film was pain." "I felt like an executioner leading her to hell," Von Trier confessed. But the Palme d'Or awards brought everyone together, amid hugs and mutual declarations of love.

On the soundtrack to "Dancer In The Dark", titled Selmasongs, Bjork, in order to merge with the protagonist's pathos, partly departs from her usual musical language. The result isn't always convincing, even though the undeniable vocal qualities of the Icelandic chanteuse remain intact. There are, in particular, too many concessions to a somewhat worn-out Broadway-style revival. Worth remembering, though, is the excellent duet with Tom Yorke of Radiohead on "I've Seen It All".

I like staying home alone, in a quiet, introverted state of mind, whispering to myself. My home is a sort of well-protected cocoon.

(Björk)

After the painful experience of "Dancer In The Dark", Bjork returns to her own music in 2001 with Vespertine, an album rooted in minimalist, avant-garde electronica, in which the Icelandic singer gives voice to all her most tormented feelings and moods, pursuing an "intimate" space. "It's a record with multiple, seemingly contradictory, allusions," she explains. "Love and the hunt, opening up to prayer and withdrawing into contemplation, surrendering to the energies of the universe as night closes in around you. I like staying home alone, in a quiet, introverted state of mind, whispering to myself. My home is a sort of well-protected cocoon." And it's precisely "Cocoon" that stands as one of the most emblematic tracks of this new phase for Bjork: a tender, whispered ballad, lightly smudged with lo-fi noise. "A perfect song, soft and light as Christmas snow," is how Jean-Daniel Beauvallet describes it in "Les Inrockuptibles", France's most highly regarded music weekly. That's the mood that dominates the record, if we set aside perhaps the trip-hop pulse of the single "Hidden Place", the track closest to the sound of Debut.

"The word 'Vespertine'," Bjork explains, "holds many concepts within it: the flower that opens at dusk, the animal that becomes active as darkness falls, the evening prayer, Venus, the evening star, sunset and total darkness." It's a nocturnal record, in short, to be listened to at dusk, perhaps on a cold winter evening. Among its notes, one can sense the skilled hand of a host of top-notch collaborators: from mixer Mark "Spike" Stent to programmers Valgeir Sigurdsson and Marius de Vries, from arranger Vince Mendoza to the American electronic duo Matmos.

Within her "cocoon", Bjork built a handful of spare melodies, minimalist atmospheres and subtle noises that form the backdrop to her free-flowing vocals, at times so fragile and ethereal they recall the singing of a child. Her exploration also ventures into eccentric, disorienting ideas, such as the litany "I love him/She loves him" in "Pagan Poetry" or the ending of "Unison". But the overall sense is that, for Bjork, Vespertine may ultimately be a transitional record, pointing toward new musical horizons.

In 2002 came Greatest Hits, which collects thirteen of her biggest songs.

Voice upon voice

The absolute protagonist of Medulla (2004) is Bjork's own voice, paired with finely crafted arrangements; and warding off the risk of a self-celebratory record are the "other" voices present on the album: the gentle tones of the Icelandic Choir, the acrobatic voice of Mike Patton, that of the extraordinary Tagaq, in which technique and expressiveness merge perfectly, those of human drum machines Rahzel and Dokaka, and, last but not least, the eternally graceful voice of the archangel Robert Wyatt. The album doesn't abandon the "cinematic" quality Bjork has accustomed us to in the past, as in the opening track "Pleasure Is All Mine", in which her voice rises and falls, cradled by waves of vocal layering that emphatically underline the key moments of the lyrics; again in the sublime "Vokuro", originally composed for piano by Icelandic composer Jorunn Vidar, which, rearranged by Bjork, becomes a majestic fusion of sacred and secular music; and above all in "Oceania", one of the album's masterpieces, in which the choir seems to dart in and out of the water, drawing the listener in with the sirens' malevolent sweetness. Also highly evocative are "Sonnets/Unrealities XI", again for choir and voice alone, whose lyrics are drawn from the E.E. Cummings poem of the same name, the delicate "Show Me Forgiveness" in which Bjork does everything herself, and "Submarine", a duet with Wyatt.

There are also tracks in which the unusual "rhythm section" built from the voices of Patton, Dokaka and Rahzel is given greater prominence: "Where Is The Line", a dark and violent invective with a Patton on dazzling form sketching out rhythm and bass lines, "Who Is It", the only "pop" track on the album, complete with a catchy chorus, and the closing, unbridled, "dancey" "Triumph Of The Heart", seasoned with stratospheric beats of whistles and raspberries and human trombones. But the real gem of the record is "Desired Constellation", a poignant love song with intimate, surreal lyrics, Bjork's extraordinary, dramatic voice, and small touches of electronics accompanying her.

With Drawing Restraint 9, Björk composes the soundtrack to the new, more or less cinematic work by her then-partner Matthew Barney, his first since the hugely successful Cremaster cycle.

We are the earth intruders

Muddy with twigs and branches

Turmoil, carnage

("Earth Intruders")

In 2007 came her new studio album, Volta, which, however, largely disappoints expectations, lingering on a sound that by now feels somewhat stale and self-referential.

More than any new elements, then, what comes to the fore are the ties to her past. The more recent of these shows up in the widespread use of horns that recreate the "nautical" atmospheres of Drawing Restraint 9. The more distant one peeks through in the details, in the style, in the vocals, in the production, which, however, doesn't display the oblique brilliance of her best work.

The lyrics too, though more direct than usual, aim at the same old targets: nature's supremacy over man ("Earth Intruders", but also "Vertebrae By Vertebrae"), and dialogue with loved ones ("I See Who You Are" is dedicated to her daughter Isadora, "My Juvenile" to her son Sindri). "Declare Independence" itself, excellent as it is, is a clear throwback to past forms. The more or less techno break before the sweet finale follows the same blueprint as many of her live shows and as Homogenic: raise your hand if, listening to it, you haven't thought of "Pluto" - and indeed both tracks bear the fingerprints of Mark "LFO" Bell.

And Björk's razor-sharp ability to pick her collaborators (second only to that of peak Bowie) seems, for the first time, dulled. Mark Bell once again proves himself an extraordinary producer and beat-maker, but one incapable of lifting the quality of the songwriting: when it's sublime, you get the tracks from Post; when it's merely so-so, you get something like Depeche Mode's "Exciter". Even so, we have to admit that Bell-Land rhythms are always a pleasure - when that relentless kick drum kicks in on "Declare Independence", the adrenaline spikes. He's the added value on "Wanderlust" too. But on "I See Who You Are" and "Vertebrae By Vertebrae" the miracle doesn't repeat itself.

And the much-touted contribution of Timbaland is so discreet as to be practically unidentifiable. Yes, there's a different rhythmic feel on "Earth Intruders" and "Innocence", but that's about it. Despite the shrewd producer's involvement, "Innocence" is pure Homogenic B-side material, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies.

One last note: the collaboration with Antony works only in part and feels a bit forced, especially on "Dull Flame Of Desire".

In the end, what holds up best are "Earth Intruders", the sharp-toothed lead single with its marching chants; "Wanderlust", with its intriguing harmonies paired to a beat that's anything but ordinary; and of course "Declare Independence", with its double-edged lyric (on one hand aimed at every woman subjugated by her man, on the other at still-colonized nations like Greenland and the Faroe Islands) and its vocal fury riding a kick drum that lands like mortar fire.

The suspicion, though, is that the Icelandic singer's creativity is enjoying a well-earned but unwelcome rest.

After the live album tied to that record, Voltaic (2009), and after a couple of standalone singles like "Comet Song" and "Nattura" (with Thom Yorke), the flying Icelander began circulating the first hints about her new project, Biophilia. The new studio album made an immediate splash thanks to the heavy multimedia apparatus surrounding it, the use of custom-built and prepared instruments in its making, and one of its distribution formats, an app for iPad and iPhone in which each song is its own microcosm built around the individual track and its specifications - a genuine interactive gem.

But musically, Biophilia proves clumsy whenever it reaches for the avant-garde (the vocal layers of "moon", the unhinged beat of "Sacrifice") and lesser whenever it draws on the organ ("Thunderbolt", the plain ambient of "Dark Matter").

The connection between the futuristic, cosmic dimension of the packaging (however technically accomplished) and the private, humble nature of the content simply never clicks. However passionate and sincerely enthusiastic she may be, the forty-five-year-old Björk now comes across as an amateur, especially next to talents like Julianna Barwick and Joanna Newsom (whom she herself helped shape with her past work).

What is it that I have

That makes me feel your pain

Like milking a stone

To get you to say it and

("Stonemilker")

For her ninth album, Vulnicura (2015), Björk instead goes back to surrounding herself with big-name producers, namely Alejandro "Arca" Ghersi and Bobby "Haxan Cloak" Krlic on engineering duties. What on paper might be her most ambitious and monumental creation turns out, in reality, to be a bloated footnote to her career. Amid all the pomp packed into the album - due in large part to a string section that often smothers the electronics - only "Stonemilker" (her most successful song-form in years) and "Lionsong" remind us that Björk is first and foremost a writer of melodies. On the experimental side, genuine experimentation is scarce: the record's game is to endlessly vary vocal trills, electronic flourishes and swelling strings while absurdly staying rooted to the starting block. The ten minutes of "Black Lake", more or less one long pause without any real drama, are a good example of this. Only the first half of "Family" achieves a true chamber-music expressionism.

The shorter "Quicksand" and "History Of Touches" (the only purely electronic episode) are leaner, more scorched requiems for the end of her relationship with Matthew Barney. Above all, this is an album marked by a lack of balance - the kind of balance she perhaps had at the start of her career and that has been eroding album after album. It's a work of self-confrontation, one in which she does, at times, genuinely conjure her real ghosts, but unfortunately still can't resist self-celebration, even if this is one of her most striking records in terms of scope, structure, production and direction.

Contributions by Nicola Mazzocca (“Medulla”), Nicola Minucci (“Volta”), Michele Saran (“Biophilia”, “Vulnicura”) and Stefano Fiori (“Utopia”), Cristiano Orlando (“Fossora”)

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