Björk’s music is the very essence of nature, the elements and the biosphere. It is earthly, but goes beyond that with its electronic tamperings. Cybernetic at times, cosmic others. How can one classify such music? Before we get the chance to classify Björk, she will simply volatilize. Take a trip through Björklands!
Words & curation by Keith, cover art by Lina Moon
Do you have a most regretted missed gig? Mine was 16 December 2001 and my excuse was that my wife and I were about to have our first baby (Stella), by then a few days overdue. Pretty good as excuses go, but nevertheless. I was on my way home from work, my usual walk from London’s Piccadilly to Waterloo station, traversing Covent Garden. I walked right past the Royal Opera House, deliberately so.
Björk had become the first ever contemporary pop artist to perform in the Royal Opera House, on her Vespertine tour and it was a very hot ticket. I stopped and inquired at the box office on the outside chance that there might be a ticket or a ‘return’. The answer to my amazement was yes, there were a few single seats available for the show that night. I thought about it and let the attendant know I would be back in a moment.
I walked on, got the train home, and that was that.
I still regret it to this day and think about it now and again. There have been a few other major gig regrets. Like the time I was in Vancouver with a friend whose friend’s band was playing support to an up & coming British rock band called Radiohead - in a downtown pub. We ended up getting rather drunk and going to a party instead.
But Björk at the Royal Opera House takes the biscuit - wins all the Regret Awards hands down. The thing is, that show was a performance of Vespertine - the whole album (though if I’m right, not in the same order - can’t be certain as I wasn’t there). And Vespertine is Bjork’s finest moment, at least to me. Of course in reality there is no such thing - everything Bjork does is a bizarre and magical journey - one may simply attach oneself and go along with it, from the early euphoric electronica of Debut to the recent biological chamber pop of her most recent album Utopia.
But it is Vespertine that worked its way into my soul. It was the album I played most when Stella was born (she came on December 26th eventually, two weeks later than her due date and 10 days after that Royal Opera House show). I played it to get her to sleep. If you have never heard it, or as is likely you have but not for a long time, Vespertine is a trip in every sense of the word. Björk made the album with a team of leftfield collaborators including Danish DJ Thomas Knak, harpist Zeena Parkins and a full Inuit choir. The album was recorded with a series of custom made music box sounds, created using real music boxes and embellished throughout by sound effects by the bonkers producer duo Matmos. It was Björk’s first excursion (of many) into music beyond anything that could be classified as pop, and had reviewers struggling to badge it, with attempts such as ‘art-pop’, ‘folktronica’, ‘ambient’ and even ‘glitch pop’ whatever that is.
The album contains four distinct movements in my mind: the opening four tracks, a joyous ‘second movement’ of wintry magic (Pagan Poetry, Frosti, Aurora) and then a third section that sucks you down into the icy depths of the coldest Scandinavian lake (An Echo A Stain, Sun In My Mouth, Heirloom and Harm Of Will) before surfacing to life and breath, with Unison. So there you go - that’s my attempt to describe it almost 20 years later.
There are no words to describe Björk’s music of course. What comes to mind is the quote “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. However, find a good book of Icelandic nature writing and you are halfway there at least. She has always been at one with nature, often accentuated by what she wears, from that famous swan dress of 2001 to her latest obsession of dressing up as a variety of plants.
I’m drawn to music that blends with nature, but perhaps there is nobody more successful at doing this than Björk. Her music is the very essence of nature, the elements and the biosphere. It is earthly, but goes beyond that with its electronic tamperings - sort of cybernetic at times, cosmic others. Thing is with Björk: she is always moving forward. Her last album Utopia was released as cryptocurrency a full four years before the new craze of NFT’s in the music industry. Her 2001 album Biophilia was released as an app, with an introduction by David Attenborough.
She has always been so far ahead of the rest of us, but it feels like she is moving further and further into the distance. Eventually she will erupt and volatilize (hey Björk, think I have your next album title!) into the atmosphere and that will be that. We’ll all get there eventually.