News about the upcoming Björk album Volta.

still think it should have been called 'eglyg'

wow lex, you don't like Hyperballad? that's craaaaaazy! you in particular i'm surprised.

so guys i'm just listening to Volta, really haven't listened enuf yet but i think my first reaction is to the sprawling tunes. i wish she would go with the groove of a tune more, instead of letting her vox meander into oblivion. and the duet with antony seems kind of repetitive... more 2 come

i have to say tho, that even though at first Declare Independence seemed i don't know kinda dumb, it progresses into bliss. really, bliss.

so OK, on the other hand... lol this is such an On The Other Hand album

at least u can't call this album bad becuz it's cheesy, which is good. if anything, it seems to take the complexity that is bjork, and make it even more complicated. hyper beats, discombobulation and sprawl almost say to me: Okay, this is what I can do, and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise.

she's always been about her abilities, u know? On Medulla, she felt ABLE to do voice, and went with that all the way. i feel like on this, her abilities were very free form, so she went with it. i like having it on, so far.

I know a lot of people hate Anthony's voice, and it's certainly very wierd and affected. But for me, I think "The Dull Flame of Desire" is likely to be one of my fave songs for the year. There's really something to the vocal chemistry there. I don't know if I could handle him on his own, though, since I haven't had the opportunity to check his solo stuff out.

yeah, i really can't stand antony and his johnson. i do like his stuff on volta, though. very nice.

yeah i actually do like the volta antony... not bad quality to that, but i haven't quite come around to the song yet

But I've always thought Post was very consistent. "Cover Me" and "Headphones" are amazing, totally underrated tracks.

-- Tim F

yeah, I'm definitely doing them a disservice with the pretty bad way I was describing them above, I think I was trying to aim at the way they're (awesomely) half-way between ambient sound experiments and actual songs... maybe more gloop than trifle(?) it still feels like underexplored territory somehow and really hard to categorise.

I do hope Björk forgets how to make a "Björk song" sometime soon and remembers how to conjure a bit of mystery & depth in her music again, frills be damned, collaborators irrelevant, she's perfectly capable of doing it without even needing 'interesting' sonics imo.

still not really loving Volta... solid 7/10, not without moments, overall a bit flat & unconvincing/unexciting and the drop to 7/10 is from somewhere off-the-scale so yeah, it's difficult to really feel pleased about it's existence, let alone that she thinks it's worthy of touring around the bloody world for 18 months :/

Agreed - Volta is still a bit of a letdown, despite some very nice tunes. None of them reach my Björk top twenty though.

"Pneumonia" is a really nice song.

I'm not sure if the worthy-of-touring thing has anything to do with Volta, more with the fact that she released an album and feels like touring. The NY show with more guests seemed to have more Volta material, but when I saw her there was a stretch of about ten songs in the middle from past albums!

yeah it's probably got more to do with my own expectations being unfeasibly high perhaps... it is also the first 'proper' tour for (some of) the Medulla material too I guess. Just looks like Greatest Hits part 2 though somehow.

i like parts of volta but it sounds too much like bjork revisiting parts of her back catalogue (the snow-trudging sounds on one track make me think of vespertine)

here's what i like about volta, given the semi-ridiculous sprawling nature of these tunes: i think it allows bjork a lot of exploration.

she has said "i sing the only way i can," and i think she's taken that even further here. on some tunes it sounds like she's making it up as she goes along, but i can appreciate that.

also the beats are hot.

and at least she hasn't gone all cheesy (gosh what would THAT sound like?) at least it's only a cutting-edge-but-still-on-the-cutting-room-floor kind of a problem.

Feels like that array of famed collaborators wasn't such a good idea - as if they have an idea of what they think a Björk song should shound like, and make something that sounds a little dated and unoriginal rather than let her evolve the way she has done on her other records.

Innocence

the vinyl of this in my local store is almost sixty bucks.

HUEG sticker...

If this album didn't have "The Dull Flame of Desire" and "Declare Independence" on it, I would say it's a masterpiece. As it stands, it's okay. DEFINITELY better than Medulla, about on par with Vespertine and Debut, not nearly as grand as Post, Homogenic or Selmasongs.