Björk - Biophilia

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

been trying to listen to this album the past few days but i haven't made it past the first track. not sure why but i'll keep trying

[cear]

i'm liking it :)

[Plum]

at first i was like...

 

:|

 

 

then...

 

:/

 

 

and now i'm all...

 

:]

[Plum]

the last minute of mutual core is the tits! more of this next time please.

[Atop]

yes, upon the fourth listen through it has now struck me as amazeballs, and Bjork at her most Bjorkness....

 

so if you are not a fan steer clear, leave room for the elders........

 

I UNNA NEED TAH GET MAH BYURK OWN!

 

amazing lyrics on this one, not that she hasn't already written tons of amazing lyrics...

 

LIFE SEX

 

Nattura from the deluxe verion is amazing, Lightening Bolt meets LFO meets Thom Yorke meets Space Goddess, oh my!!!

[KGW]

I'm just now starting to get into this, having heard it first at the live show not far off a year ago. The first 4 or 5 tracks are really special. After that, many of the tracks haven't quite clicked, but this might be because I've listened to them less. I am enjoying the electronic instrumentation and breaks moments.

 

I just wish it had a few more choruses.

[Aphex_Squarepusher_Twin]

i like this album, but it's not the best album she does... comparing with Homogenic or Medulla... i think that soon we shall say Bye Bye Björk...

[Guest]

i like this album, but it's not the best album she does... comparing with Homogenic or Medulla... i think that soon we shall say Bye Bye Björk...

 

Well said. While I had some of her earlier albums and EPs I got stucked on the more nostalgic Björk instead of her overpolished new works. While Björk is caring for any single you can poop out of an album (with some fancy remixers- she asked even Aphex one day when I remember right) I must sadly say that I don't care much for her later work.

She is releasing each track mostly individual with some bonus remixes and this is what I find really annoying. You can simply guess which one she is choosing, just look at the pitchfork charts. I wonder why she haven't asked Salem, Squarepusher or Andrea Parker yet.

 

I got a break in interest after Medulla. Maybe it's based on her choice of producers (I was shocked to see her along with Timbaland) but I would wish to see her sampling and working with Matmos, Oval and all the other classic artists like in the good ol' times.

[Hoodie]

i like this album, but it's not the best album she does... comparing with Homogenic or Medulla... i think that soon we shall say Bye Bye Björk...

 

Well said. While I had some of her earlier albums and EPs I got stucked on the more nostalgic Björk instead of her overpolished new works. While Björk is caring for any single you can poop out of an album (with some fancy remixers- she asked even Aphex one day when I remember right) I must sadly say that I don't care much for her later work.

She is releasing each track mostly individual with some bonus remixes and this is what I find really annoying. You can simply guess which one she is choosing, just look at the pitchfork charts. I wonder why she haven't asked Salem, Squarepusher or Andrea Parker yet.

 

I got a break in interest after Medulla. Maybe it's based on her choice of producers (I was shocked to see her along with Timbaland) but I would wish to see her sampling and working with Matmos, Oval and all the other classic artists like in the good ol' times.

 

i totally agree. in my opinion, volta was terrible and so is biophilia. i really tried to like her newer output, truly. vespertine is probably one of my favorite albums of all time and i have so much respect for bjork. however, i think her ability to make magical tunes has steadily declined with age. she should probably retire from music and experiment with other artforms instead.

[Atop]

I definitely disagree with 'Volta' and 'Biophilia' being terrible records but they are not as good as any of the records from 'Homogenic' to 'Medulla', she should pass the torch to Fever Ray and have an elaborate ceremony arranged for this event.

[Hoodie]

i can agree with this.

 

i just started listening to fever ray a couple of weeks ago and she has seriously filled the hole in my heart that bjork left with her last two records.

[Atop]

let's arrange this occurrence then, hopefully we will get a second Fever Ray record out of the deal.

[Jamesqdot]

The weird thing about Björk is that she's still able to write compelling, melodically complex and often quite beautiful vocals, but then overcomplicates them with such pretentious, trumped up instrumentation that the former destroys the latter. What you're left with is an unintelligible mess. The most successful remixes reveal this.

 

For me it all started with 'All Is Full Of Love'. Who, honestly, prefers the album version over the strings mix or the mix that accompanied Chris Cunningham's breathtaking video, for example? The new Biophilia Remix Series may succumb to new wub-wub-wub dubstep tropes, but it's a hell of a lot more entertaining and compelling than some of the tediously noodling album versions in my opinion.

 

I really wanted Biophilia to be that new, compelling Björk album after 'Volta' and 'Medulla'. but she insisted on using these rather forced, bonkers, created instruments that just don't work with her already free-form vocal style.

[Redruth]

what is the sound of guðmundsdóttir? björk needs to go back to beginning

[Guest]

The weird thing about Björk is that she's still able to write compelling, melodically complex and often quite beautiful vocals, but then overcomplicates them with such pretentious, trumped up instrumentation that the former destroys the latter. What you're left with is an unintelligible mess. The most successful remixes reveal this.

 

For me it all started with 'All Is Full Of Love'. Who, honestly, prefers the album version over the strings mix or the mix that accompanied Chris Cunningham's breathtaking video, for example? The new Biophilia Remix Series may succumb to new wub-wub-wub dubstep tropes, but it's a hell of a lot more entertaining and compelling than some of the tediously noodling album versions in my opinion.

 

I really wanted Biophilia to be that new, compelling Björk album after 'Volta' and 'Medulla'. but she insisted on using these rather forced, bonkers, created instruments that just don't work with her already free-form vocal style.

 

 

She has a bit talent, no less. What I found really nice was her gesture to erase all instruments from Medulla, setting up the album with beatboxing, sparse synths and 90% voices. A nice move.

Sadly it seems she is only delivering her voice for polished instrumentals and what really turned me off was the rather prolific advert for the album. Making an App, an interactive webpage, "an album with 10 custom-made chrome-plated tuning forks, silkscreened on one face in 10 different colours, stamped at the back. Each fork is adjusted to a root note of a Biophilia track." is way too much.

 

This is more a wankfest from Little Indian then everything else.

I remember her old singles got sold as normal editions, splitted in 3 versions, each different and sometimes released in a boxset. Nice thing for a good price. Nowadays I got tears in my eyes when I see her overvalued single boxsets for Volta.

[xyrofen]

Volta is the album I got into Björk with, Homogenic and Vespertine are the ones that kept me in.

The sound palette of Medulla kind of annoys me, but it has some nice songs.

I really like "Virus" off of Biophilia. It's not a bad record, nor is it great, but it has some very forgettable tracks.

[dr lopez]

yeah bjork and little indian are masters of the useless and overpriced single/remix set. makes me wonder if she cares about the environment at all. Why have 50+ editions that all have to be printed differently and everything. pointless.

[danshoebridge]

Gave this album another try yesterday - IMO it's still far and away her worst album, there's something so...self-conscious about it all. The arrangements don't suit her vocals at all, there's nothing to grip on to melodically and the production is a strange mixture of minimalist and completely over-the-top. The lyrics sound like passages from ' a short history of nearly everything' at times. Seriously, it's not good.

 

Some of the remixes aren't bad though.

[Guest]

Some of the remixes aren't bad though.

 

To be honest I don't listen very regularly to her remixes I once collected.

The only remix EP I play sometimes for me or in sets is the Fatcat 12" with the two remixes by Funkstörung. I still love it while their approach to IDM sounds so shockingly dated.

 

But I love it, along with the u-ziq remix from Hunter.

[Guest]

yeah bjork and little indian are masters of the useless and overpriced single/remix set. makes me wonder if she cares about the environment at all. Why have 50+ editions that all have to be printed differently and everything. pointless.

 

 

haha, watching the master entries over at discogs for her albums and singles is sometimes up the same amount as classic rock albums who got repressed over a timeline of 30 years

[Atop]

Bit talent???? Yes and this is why she is considered one of the greatest female musicians ever. At least in the world I live in, she is one of the greatest.

[Aphex_Squarepusher_Twin]

Oh yeah, i forgot Vespertine... i adore this album: its universe, its melodies and the voice of Björk used as an instrument (more than in the album Homogenic): he voice is united, welded, mixed with melodies, as in accord... It is hard to explain, but her voice sticks well 2 melodies & 2 atmosphere of this album... Which is darker and colder than Homogenic... Vespertine is much more homogeneous, it's not any more the only songs which matter, but the set, which creates a cold, suggestive atmosphere, once more, of Iceland.

I like very much the part of one of the songs where Björk walks on the snow that makes me shivers & as i like the snow, that also tempts me 2 walk above...

[Guest]

Björk is sooo cute and hey, isn't she an IDM godess meanwhile? Ha, not only IDM. Björk is THE MUSIC godess these days. I'm not expecting too much of Ae any more, Tom Jenkinson is also over IMO, but I'm always looking forward to new Björk stuff. But Homogenic will be unreached.

[cear]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM80F_J-QHE&feature=colike

 

making of this pretty incredibly imaginative video

[KGW]

Anyone picked up the remix album?