Bjork - 2017 album

Actually, he has already denied it:

Danish film director Lars von Trier has rejected Icelandic pop singer Björk’s allegation that he sexually harassed her during the making of the movie Dancer in the Dark.

“That was not the case. But that we were definitely not friends, that’s a fact,” Von Trier told Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in its online edition.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/17/not-the-case-lars-von-trier-denies-sexually-harassing-bjork

Imago, when you are talking about someone who it appears to me, has surrounded himself with a coterie of yes-people and enablers, and then from a position of power attempts to sexually harass a woman, then attempts to exert his power(and that of his group of acolytes) to punish her for knocking him back. Then I thought it would be fair to describe such behaviour as a symptom of an unbearable personality disorder. I didn't use a disability slur word or anything. Is this being "called out"? ffs!

"she dictated everything and was about to close a movie of 100m kroner"

.. I don't blame her, tbqh

your post would have still made the same sense without the bolded words, that's all! associating personality disorders with abusive behaviour isn't right imo

well yeah, you have to think of Hitler's feelings as well.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/22905037_10155821943851460_660015071562070825_o.jpg?oh=fe9975b343cac08b7eeff4e428960e01&oe=5A66ACBC

14 tracks, total running time of 01:11:38.
"Conceived by Björk & Arca"

wow

Bjork wins Halloween this year.

Artist who did the makeup is drag queen Hungry: https://www.instagram.com/isshehungry very sickening yet awesome work. I can see why Bjork would have chosen her work, it's very symmetrical and some of it even seems inspired by the same aesthetics bjork has used in the past. e.g.: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUzmenOjDLz/

I kind wish they have gone with something like that, this one is kind of disturbing and not as aesthetically pleasing what with the bird fetus and voldemort slits on the neck and the alien vagina on her forehead.

A few of the track titles (some might be work-in-progress and/or variations of one track): Allow, Arisen My Senses, Blissing Me, Body Manners, Body Memory, Courtship, Features Creatures, Future Forever, The Gate, Loss, Utopia.

"Features Creatures" is Bjork singing over this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FQ2DAEh1Mw

(This is not a joke.)

Apparently the album flows in four distinct movements and features birdsong, flutes, harps, choirs, woodwinds etc. Overall a pretty light/airy feel but there's also a track with Rabit ("Loss"), so expect darker elements as well. Arca is not only the co-producer but also the co-writer on many songs.

A tour with a 12-piece flute ensemble is planned (first announced date: London's All Points East Festival in May). Björk said she might play flute on stage.

Well then ...

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/23116701_10155827244516460_8675642920107884561_o.jpg?oh=0910a185ef6b408da4bd48a50182846f&oe=5A6B6563

https://www.facebook.com/bjork/posts/10155827276611460

kudos for trying something new

If this doesn't end up my new least favorite Bjork LP, I'll eat my copy of Volta.

Recently finished writing a review which includes the phrase "cross-species cephalopod Shaman for the chthulucene" so feel pretty damn vindicatd now fyi fuiud.

http://images.45cat.com/eddie-kendricks-goin-up-in-smoke-motown-2.jpg

welp I should definitely not have loaded this thread at work

Björk’s New Album Is a Love Letter to Optimism

New single, "Blissing Me":

https://open.spotify.com/track/18pZmxEPXqJgEa67WQpGRz

Surprisingly simple and kind of catchy, very tender vocal delivery, pretty much just a harp and a kick, slightly similar vibes to the more stripped-down stuff from Vespertine and the Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack. Probably also echoes of "Batabid" and "Virus". Very different to "The Gate", I like it.

I far prefer this!

really love this song! sounds like being an a sea voyage or something. the percussion makes me think of a creaky ship

Yes, more harp please!

Gorgeous song. Really looking forward to this album now.

Happy to have the skepticism that I felt following the release of the first track melt away.

Yes this is gorgeous.

So this album really is something, huh? Quite overwhelming after two first listens. For sure her longest, but perhaps also weirdest and least immediate yet? Medúlla and Biophilia seem now like merely a prelude to her idiosyncracies blossoming in full on Utopia.

The woodwind arrangements are gorgeous; she's really developed as a composer and arranger over the years. Perhaps that's how the record should be seen? As a non-narrative piece of modern classical / folk / electronic fusion, rather than an album in the singer-songwriter sense?

Petridis isn't wholly convinced

I don’t like it much. She needs to stop hanging around with Arca, his style is very bloated and every song in here is just nothing. Cool arrangements here and there but where are the actual songs? I struggle to remember any of them.

"Actual songs" hasn't really been her thing since, what, Vespertine? There's still been a lot of memorable music since then.

"Actual songs" hasn't really been her thing since, what, Vespertine?

Rong.

Vespertine, Medulla, Volta and even Biophilia were based around her and some actual compositions. It seems to me like Vulnicura and this one are more based around the arrangements... don’t know how else to explain it. Like if Arca shows up with some cool sounds and arrangements and just says ‘now sing on top of this’.

I do like it more than Vulnicura but that’s not saying much.

Vulnicura had some of her strongest songs in years (especially Stonemilker, Lionsong and Black Lake) and if anything the string arrangements were based around the vocal lines rather than vice-versa. And Bjork did most of the production on that record IIRC, Arca got involved relatively late in the day.

I actually shouldn’t voice my opinion on neither as I just can’t get into them and haven’t listened more than a couple of times. There’s not much pulling me in, sorry.

Stonemilker was her best song since Vespertine

I agree.

Hope you can find your way in Moka. If not then it's not for you, but it's a joy in there.

I promise to give both another chance in a couple of weeks.

the gate sounded like bjork TM
blissing me is great tho!

moka, i hear you with the anti-arca stuff and where that overwhelms her, I agree. But Stonemilker, Lionsong and Black Lake are still totally worth the trouble, signed a guy who was very angry at her MoMA show.

Every album after Vespertine has a few song-songs on it -- Medulla has "Triumph of the Heart," Biophilia has "Virus" -- but they're always in the minority. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by any stretch. The only truly disappointing album in her entire catalogue to me is Volta, for its at least implicit regressiveness. And even that has "Wanderlust" and "Declare Independence."

I want to say that I can see Moka's difficulty with it. More so than Vulnicura, this album does feel like a somewhat 'meandering' record; the songs flow in and out of each-other. I've no idea of individual tracks on this one, most of the time, and just let it play (and repeat and repeat). It is no Homogenic, so to speak. But if you accept that, there are so many great phases and so many moments of beauty on here.

the first half of 'the gate' is kinda astonishing

It seems difficult / pointless to me to divide her career into songs and not-so-songs and non-songs. And I'd say that Vespertine was already resolutely turned towards the trajectory she's been following (how many songs do you count there ?). And if I'm told "songs", I think of different ones for her latest albums.
On Medulla: Vokuro, Who is it, Desired Constellation, Oceania, Mouth's cradle, Triumph too. (and if I was provocative, I'd add Ancestors)
On Volta: Earth Intruders, all from Innocence to Hope (hardly care for Declare)
On Biophilia: Crystalline, Moon and Solstice, Mutual Core I guess (only one of her albums I like distinctly less)
On Vulnicura: Stone Milket, Lionsong, Not get, Atom Dance
I think it shows there's no decisive way to conclude what has the right to count as a proper Björk song.
Can't wait to hear the new album. I just have to figure out where it was sent.

I'd say that Vespertine was already resolutely turned towards the trajectory she's been following (how many songs do you count there ?)

Excepting "Frosti" and maybe "Harm of Will" ... all of them.

Alright. What I meant is that I already hear something abstract and free-flowing in Vespertine, which already slows things down and leaves the beats behind. Later Björk just began experimenting with other instruments: choirs / beatboxing, brass, strings, now wind instruments. I'm always surprised to see each time so many people suggest she should restrict herself, maybe it's the same people than in 2004, maybe it's the same people for all artists :) Well, Vulnicura was well-received, but I'm not sure it was for the right reasons. I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid, but I feel it's crazy that Björk has stayed divisive as she has matured.

I have an opinion of course

I've thought a lot about "Bjork as a songwriter" vs. "Bjork as a composer"

I myself believe that with Vespertine-and-onward she sought to get away from the "pop song" format entirely, and work at carving out a music-language that was unique and unattached to the influence of her previous collaborators.

On her albums from Vespertine-and-onward, there are excellent "normal-ass pop songs ("Cocoon", "Triumph Of A Heart", "Who Is It") but they become fewer and fewer and weaker and weaker. By "Volta" and "Biophilia" all the poppy songs are kind of crap? "Earth Intruders"? "Cosmogony"?

On her albums from Vespertine-and-onward, however, her more abstract arty things start to shine more and more. The art-song afterthought of "You've Been Flirting Again" becomes a feature in "An Echo, A Stain", and by the time "Biophilia" comes around, the entire album is just artsy-fartsy gorgeousness.

My point is: I too miss Bjork-of-the-90s. I was frustrated with her transitional phase through the 00s. But with Biophilia and Vulnicura I feel like we're seeing a triumph of this gestative process-- I think of her work now as being in the same vein as Dagmar Kraus and Scott Walker, and try not to let my "Isobel"-hangover continue to inhibit my appreciation for the musiclanguage she's developed and recently perfected.

Haven't heard this new one yet though

When I say "normal ass pop songs" I hope one realizes I'm not talking about the production but rather the content of the melody/chords/lyrics. "Who Is It" might be a crazy production but I could still render it on piano in a cocktail-lounge format. "Dark Matter" not so much

I agree

I am listening to bjork's new album utopia right now, it is quality bjork music

There was some interview, can't remember if it was with Arca or Bjork, where it came up that Arca really loves the Drawing Restraint 9 tracks like 'Ambergris March' and was encouraging her to explore that sound more. You can really hear that on some of the new tracks.

FGTI, completely agree. The Kraus/Walker stage of career is a good metaphor.

"Who Is It" might be a crazy production but I could still render it on piano in a cocktail-lounge format.

Ok this obviously needs to happen.

Would pay $14.99USD to hear an album of fgti's piano lounge bjork covers

omg, just digging in but the first thing she did was sample one of my all time favorite crazy ass bird calls... the Montezuma Oropendola!
http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/127299