Review: “Biophilia” by Björk

Björk has always been an eagerly forward-thinking artist, consistently challenging the conventional definition of “pop” music. Each of her iconic musical moments since the mid-90s has contained a specific sonic identity.  Microbeats and music boxes, vocal babbles and manipulations, 1950s Sci-Fi brass accompaniments – her mission statement to explore everything possible manifests itself to be more and more high-concept on every album in her catalog. Partially recorded on an iPad, she fuses her past sounds with new flavors and discovers the human’s relationship with the universe on 2011’s ambitious Biophilia. Interestingly, this isn’t just an album – it is a multimedia exploration album in collaboration with Apple, with each of the ten tracks featured as its own singular app designed specifically for Apple operating systems.

Björk embraces her love for nature and technology, connecting her compositions to a much larger scale as the songs reaching high extremes and low subtleties. Biophilia explores sounds and instruments, such as the  “tesla coil” featured as a bassline on the mesmerizingly brooding “Thunderbolt”, the creation of “gameleste” on “Crystalline” and a pendulum harp on “Solstice”, compiled to create patterns with the Earth’s movements to evoke the sound of a harp on a handful of other tracks.

On “Crystalline”, the album’s first single, Björk revels in the “sparkle you become when you conquer anxiety” against a wall of punchy synthetics and glassy rhythms before erupting into a frenetic Aphex Twin-like breakbeat. The centerpiece “Cosmogony” finds Björk quietly contemplating creation over a slow-building brass section and harmonious choir. The gargantuan “Mutual Core”, a metaphor for attachments in human relationships, pairs her unique vocal phrasing to a somber organ before rumbling, menacing beats (courtesy of British production group, 16bit) and swooping choir vocals erupt together.

Some Björk’s past few albums have included experimental songs that may be perceived as unlistenable or too peculiar. Biophilia continues this trend, thus bringing down the ceiling of one of her most audacious and fearless moments in her musical career. “Dark Matter” seeks to “connect breath, the human soul and the cosmos”  with gibberish improvisations over beat-less electronic drones and swirls. The aforementioned “Solstice”, one of a few songs written with longtime collaborator and poet Sjón, is so eerily intimate and intricate that it is almost without discernible melody to be even remembered. Contrarily, the adventurous “Hollow” and the stunning “Virus” both return individually with breathtaking results. Biophilia becomes her most expertly varied set of songs since the 90s, proving what is so compelling about Björk: her willingness to outdo herself time and time again.