Björk: Still Nuts

It’s been about ten years since Björk put out an album I really cared about, but Post and Homogenic were enough to make her one of my favorite artists for many, many years. I was never able to get into the glitchier, more exper­i­mental later albums–Ves­per­tine had no hook for me, and Medulla was, for the most part, just too weird. And I like weird.

It looks like her new record, Volta, is going to be out in early May (just under a month from now). There’s a pretty exten­sive inter­view with her over at P4k, wherein she dis­cusses the more rhythmic basis of this album, the process that went into recording it, and how she sees it fit­ting into her world­view. (Sur­prise sur­prise, she’s still pretty crazy.) The col­lab­o­ra­tors list pro­vided in it is pretty exten­sive and eye-opening–“Timbaland, Antony, Light­ning Bolt’s Brian Chip­pen­dale, per­cus­sionist Chris Cor­sano, African col­lec­tive Konono N°1, kora vir­tuoso Toumani Dia­baté, Chi­nese pipa player Min Xiao-Fen, and a ten-piece Ice­landic brass sec­tion” (!!). Seems this thing could go in any direction.

The record’s first single, “Earth Intruders,” actu­ally reminds me quite a bit of Post–era songs like “Army of Me,” albeit with some­thing of a lighter touch. No crushing heavy synths here, just crazy drum­ming (or drum pro­gram­ming), a chanted chorus of some sort of human/earth har­mony man­i­festo, Björk’s usual vocal the­atrics. I like it a lot, so fin­gers crossed.

Track­list:
01. “Earth Intruders“
02. “Wan­der­lust“
03. “Dull Flame of Desire“
04. “Inno­cence“
05. “I See Who You Are“
06. “Ver­te­brae by Ver­te­brae“
07. “Pnue­monia“
08. “Hope“
09. “Declare Inde­pen­dence“
10. “My Juvenile”

Get the single:
“Earth Intruders”

…then pre-order it.

And check out this awe­some video of a drunken Björk singing along to 2 Unlimited’s “No Limits.”