Biophilia is easily Björk’s most ambitious project to date. While it’s easy to get distracted by the technological innovations that she has facilitated around it – the educational iPad apps alone may have far-reaching effects on future artistic endeavours – the fact remains: Biophilia is also Björk’s most musically potent record since 2004’s Medulla, and arguably since Homogenic back in 1997.
It begins unassumingly enough, the unhurried descending harp line that opens Moon soon giving rise to tendrils of melody, with gradual accretions of texture blooming into some of her most luminous and pained vocal harmonies. Bjork seems characteristically preoccupied with the hidden processes of the universe, whether that be crystal formations ‘spread out like my fingers’ (Crystalline), the mystery of Dark Matter or the sombre hymnal of Cosmogony. The clustered dissonance of Hollow may stretch some listeners’ patience, but the artist mostly seems to have reached a reasonable balance between pop accessibility and experimental excess.
Biophilia loosely translates as ‘love of the world’. While Björk’s lyrics are indeed saturated with a sense of wonder at the mind-boggling forces that permit life to continue, she uses much of the geo or biological imagery as a metaphor for human processes. Take, for instance, the soft optimism of a virus wooing its way into a cell (Virus), or the grinding dirge of Mutual Core, a relationship refigured as the inevitable drift of tectonic plates, with Björk creating a lyrical synthesis between the forces that compel the human heart and the molten dynamo that drives the planet. A brilliant return from one of Iceland’s few remaining sustainable exports.
BY OLIVER DOWNES
Best Track: Dark Matter
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In A Word: Björk
