Bjork - Biophilia

[mosc]

"Bjork - Biophilia"

Bjork has released her new album as an iPad app; actually, several in one package. I purchased it and all of the songs. Total price was about $12. Each song is an interactive app in itself.

I'm not a Bjork fan, but maybe only because I'm not all that familiar with her music. It's more experimental that pop music, and very well crafted and conceived.

This is an interesting package, and I hope it is a sign of things to come, but it would require a lot of bucks to put out something like this. It reeks of commercial music, but musically it is still of artistic value. I love music, but hate the music industry, so something like this is hard to embrace, but I'm getting over it.

You can see what the "splash screen" of this is like on the iPad app by looking at her web site http://bjork.com

The songs all have a relatively similar sonority - very dry and sequencer based sounding - very mechanized sounding, except for her voice. There are many meter changes. Her voice to me sounds very chantey. Her vocal lines remind me a lot of Torah chanting in the Synagogues, if you have ever heard that. There are notes - liner notes if you will - in many of the songs. Some are better than others. In a few places, Bjork says she's trying to get away from 4/4 time. I say, bravo and well done.

Anyway, I have played many of the apps, and they are interesting, but not musically very valuable, to me at least. Each song can be played with "animation", not interactively. My guess is that this is the way to listen to the songs as they are on the CDs or LPs. That is the best part of it. The animation elements are taken directly from the interactive apps. The animation is very well synced to the music. It's very nice; very much like artistic music videos. Under the animation are the lyrics. This is helpful because her English pronunciation is sometimes hard to follow.

They lyrics at times are quite evocative. In one song, she is singing about plate tectonics, and somehow she also references a previous relationship.

I don't like the way the songs are mixed. Bjork's voice is not what I'd call beautiful. She sings very accurately on pitch just fine, but the sonority is a bit rough for a female voice, IMHO. At times, the processing chain on her vocal track breaks up, or distorts, at the end of a phrase. When listening, I add a bit of reverb and that helps tremendously. This helps the dry electronic sounds too. I don't mean this as a negative criticism, because virtually every vocal artist these days is over-produced and over-mastered. Bjork's Biophilia is super clean and transparent. On the negative side, there is virtually no dynamic range - sigh. Even though her voice on these recordings is very loud and clean, it is very over-compressed. It has very little intimacy. Too bad, a missed opportunity.

To me, Bjork's Biophilia is worth the money, mostly to see what might be coming down the line in music reproduction technology. But, you have to be able to put up with the glitz. If you are looking for a neat music app to use in your music, forget this one, unless you want to sound like Bjork.

[elektro80]

trivia:

Bjørk was obsessed in her teens with the Peter Baumann LP - Romance 76.

[elektro80]

I think I bought the Biophilia app. Haven´t opened it yet. Perhaps I should.

[mosc]

[elektro80]

I still like that particular album. Good work. It could be that I didn´t play it just as many times as Bjørk did though.

[Antimon]

Not sure I'm going to check this one out, but it was good to see a nicely written review.

[gustavojobim]

nice, thanks for the review.

bjork is very technopop in her two first albums.

homogenic is her third and she begins to broaden her palette towards more avantgarde arrangements. that one is my favourite of her albums. another interesting album is medulla, where she uses vocal samples for all sounds, or most of the sounds.

her music is definitely worth investigating.

[pyrosonic]

That's a very interesting bit of trivia.I LOVE the 2nd side of Romance.The 1st side,not as much.

As far as Bjork goes,this is still my fave:



It's hard to tell from the poor quality video,but I wonder if it's actually Guy Sigsworth playing the keyboard on the left in back.

[pyrosonic]

And then there's this:



But I guess I'm getting a bit off topic now?

[Antimon]

No one has a better back catalogue of music videos than Björk, having worked with Michel Gondry etc. I love that robot video.

[Acoustic Interloper]

[gustavojobim]

yes her videos are awesome.

I have the "Volumen" DVD, it's a compilation of all her music videos. very recommended. later she released a sequel, "Volumen Plus". that one I don't know.

I also have two live DVDs, also very nice performances.

played Homogenic today because of this topic

[gustavojobim]

and for those who never got into her style, it's worth giving another chance. my first impression was that she was trying too hard to be "different", I didn't like so much. then, years later I tried again and found lots to like in her music.

[-minus-]

The album concept sounds mildly interesting in terms of it's delivery, but I wouldn't personally give her much credibility at all. She does indeed try hard to be different, but she'll always be mainstream in my eyes/ears. It's a bit like one of those brushed up 'faux hawk' hairstyles. It pretends to be 'out there' but at the same time would be totally acceptable for a day job in a bank. Admittedly she has a core fan base, but she irritates me. Perhaps a free pair of those alligator shoes would have been appropriate for the limited edition? Maybe one shoe in each colour just to be wacky...