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$17.99 CD Deluxe Version
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BJORK
Biophilia
(Nonesuch)
 "Cosmogony"
"Thunderbolt"
Most Björk albums come wrapped in some sort of back-story or defining principle, and Biophilia has a pretty compelling one; the record is meant to explore the collision of humanity and technology, the intersection of the worlds of nature and computers, and, truth be told, the most talked about version of this record, maybe the most interesting, is one Other Music doesn't even carry -- the entire album is available as a series of interactive iPad apps that Bjork developed with teams of scientists, game developers, writers, and a few musicians too. It's an ambitious project, to say the least, but hey, some of you like Björk for her tunes, so let's consider.
Her albums are always heady affairs, and they generally take more than a few listens to really sink in, but Biophilia is an instantly engaging record that plays to Björk's biggest strengths: first, of course, her incredible, inimitable voice, here crystal-clear but incredibly raw and natural, showing her age like an opera singer, with an ever-increasing depth of tone. I actually bumped into Björk last season at a performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera, and though her new album is largely played on hyper-modern instruments like the gameleste, which combines Indonesian gamelan and a celeste, or some sort of Tesla coil bass generator that I simply do not understand, and supposedly much of this was composed visually on an iPad, you can hear the influence of Wagner's dark, visceral compositions throughout. With production assistance by the likes of Matthew Herbert, El Guincho, Mark Bell, and 16 Bit, this is about as far from any conventional pop music as a pop artist could be, with grand, swooping tones and chords creating moods rather than melodies, and complex, shifting rhythms delivering power and emotion rather than sticking for long to anything resembling a groove. There are brief nods to the dance floor, or the sort of churning electro-pop that defined her earlier career, but only for fleeting moments. And at the heart, Björk's fragile but frighteningly assured vocals, finding humanity and emotion in shifting tectonic plates, and flashing computer screens too.
I won't tell you that this forward-thinking artistic statement is best consumed as a vinyl LP (available later this month), or the even more outdated compact disc -- hell, go buy the app if you want, and raise a glass to Steve Jobs while you're at it. But despite, or perhaps because of her forward-thinking ambitions, Björk has made another deeply engaging album of good old-fashioned music. (Deluxe CD edition housed in a digi-pack and includes three bonus tracks.) [JM]
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