Bjork - Volta (One Little Indian)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Stop whatever else it is you're doing, breathe deeply, turn off whatever sound it is that's currently invading your ears (unless it's 'Volta'), and pay attention, for this is a momentous occasion. 'Volta' is a real event, and we shall attempt here to tell you precisely why.
But first, let us consider experimental music, such as the work Bjork delivered on 'Medulla'. In fact, let us consider experiments as a whole. In terms of science, people do not experiment blindly. Laboratories are not full of people in white coats putting chickens in to vats of acid just for a laugh, just to see what happens. True experimenters put a lot of thought in to the process before they even begin experimenting. The aim is to get something at the end of the experiment that one can apply to a more normal field so as to improve it, and as such, humanity as a whole can progress. Experimental music, though it's not often though of as such, is actually pretty similar.
What it often understandably gets mixed up with is improvisational music - a wholly different animal. In improvisational music there really are no rules, things do just happen, they happen for no discernable reason, and this is absolutely a-ok - it's the intention, and it often makes for very refreshing pieces. But on something like 'Medulla', the masterful and almost entirely vocal LP Bjork preceded 'Volta' with, this certainly was not the case. Rules were everywhere, and the experimentation was carried out within set boundaries. It was planned, it was careful, it had a clear and precise point - just like work carried out in a laboratory. Of course, it was also stunningly beautiful (let not talk of labs and science make you think that it was a cold record), but it wasn't haphazard. It was about learning lessons from the process, taking them, and applying them to common practice. Now, of course, with Bjork, common practice includes a wide array of things that few others would deem 'of the norm', but by stretching herself as a composer and a vocalist so much on that remarkable LP, Miss Gudmonsdottir learnt some highly valuable lessons.
What she does on 'Volta', like any good experimenter, is operate refreshed and anew, with more ammunition in her arsenal, to take her craft forward. Whereas 'Medulla', astounding though it was, was very much the lady evolving as an artist, 'Volta' stands up boldly as its own piece. And it's a frankly stunning achievement.
It starts with 'Earth Intruders', which may well be known to you, dear reader, by now. Though it does recall the day glow brilliance of something such as 'Army of Me' from 'Post', it isn't a step back. Bjork remains so far ahead of her nearest competition that it is undeniably light years in front of anything anyone else will manage this year. The layers to what is at first a decidedly brash piece only reveal themselves after time, this being a piece with baffling depth, something which is a credit to the production offered by Timbaland. Over an unnerving buzz we hear laid out before us not only Bjork's enraptured howls of 'Turmoil!' and 'Carnage!' (let alone her hip hop like boast of how she's "grinding the sceptics in to the soil") but a rhythm track that sounds like people playing dustbins and glass bottles with gay abandon. It's both one of her most accessible and intricate pieces, transparently catchy but also unavoidably the work of someone very, very intelligent.
Whilst that could be said of 'Volta' as a whole, it's actually the overwhelming presence of brass on the record that will be your lasting impression of it rather than any one work ethic that binds the record together. The honks and parps at the beginning of 'Wanderlust', we have it good authority from our own Toby (having spent some time documenting the place for Rockfeedback TV), sound exactly how Bjork's fatherland of Iceland feels, far more so than the glacial chords presented by Sigur Ros, who, it seems, were having us on all along. This invokes huge ships jostling for position amidst a foggy dock. Yes, it does kill the pace somewhat on first listen, but there becomes much here to love as the second track develops in to something one can really obsess over. Imagine if the vocal textures and layering that made up the backdrop to 'Medulla' were provided by brass instruments and not the human voice, and you're close (see, the fruits of the experiment are being used), but this doesn't tell the whole story, as it all goes on over a beat which wouldn't be out of place on a grime record.
In other moments, she uses the brass like others use bass. You'll want to pay attention to every part of it at once, and that goes for the lyrics as much as the music, Bjork authoring words which you'll slave over as much as a student would over a book they were studying. And that's a marvellous thing - it points out that this is a record that has real shelf life. In fact, one might never actually get to the true root of what it is these songs are about, but you'll certainly want to keep searching for the meaning in them...
The first moment of inarguable, unfathomable genius comes with 'Dull Flame Of Desire', also the first of two tracks on which Bjork shares vocal duties with Antony Hegarty - the game of 'spot the guest appearances' starts here (though it doesn't once feel like a collaborations record - Bjork's presence is too unique and her vision too strong for 'Volta' to befall that fate). It's a crushingly weighty, dark piece that belies the flamboyant nature of the album's front cover and opening track, one on which call and response lines go back and forth between the pair whilst drums (presumably provided by Chris Corsano and Brian Chippendale from Lightning Bolt) rumble ominously in the background for much of the track, coming right to the forefront come the climax of some seven or so glorious minutes, which feels like being crushed under a rhythmic tsunami. One of the most sensual pieces of music to ever reach these ears, it makes Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' sound tinny and half formed.
It's not just because of the relatively garish covers that they share that we compare 'Volta' to 'Post' more than any other Bjork LP, though I'm certain the fact that both joyous records were given such bright clothing is no accident. It's because, in places, again we have hugely emotive songs atop of decidedly futuristic dance backdrops. Take 'Innocence', possessing a rhythm track constructed it seems out of the sound of a person being punched (maybe it's Timbaland?), it's the perfect marriage of the wonder-producer's pop sensibility and Bjork's forward thinking, wide eyed brilliance. Those operatic vocals drape sensuously over some of the hardest hitting hip hop we've heard since Dizzee Rascal's 'I Luv U', and if it weren't for the somewhat lazy fade out, we'd have no criticisms of it whatsoever.
'I See Who You Are' begins with these words: "I see who you are behind the skin and the muscles... I see who you are now, and when you get older later I will see the same girl, the same soul, lioness, fire heart, passionate lover...". And suddenly, you notice how Bjork rarely seems to use tools such as rhyme or conventional line breaks in her lyrics at all (apart from 'Earth Intruders' maybe). It's a wonderfully diverse record; after the clamour of 'Innocence' she's now singing the line "later this century, when you and I have become corpses, let's celebrate now all this flesh on our bones, let me push you up against me tightly and enjoy every bit of you, lover..." at the top of her lungs atop something that sounds like 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors' by Radiohead. Sure, it's not going to be a single, no, it's probably not going to be the track you take away from 'Volta' and tell your friends about. But if this is album filler... well, then this is a classic album.
'Vertebrae By Vertebrae', with its marching drums and terrifyingly atmospheric use of brass (there it is again) is one of the most disarming sounds we've heard since Aaron Dilloway (he of Wolf Eyes) sat in front of us, stuck those odd microphones in his mouth, closed his eyes, leant back and went 'arrrrrrrrgghhhhhh...'. It dawns on you here that perhaps this is as experimental an album as Medulla, but it's simultaneously her most accessible in places. This song for example ain't even got a tune, and I'm listening with real intent to every vocal leap like I'm following a melody that has been sung to me since I was covered in birth-gunge. It's a track that has a real film-noir quality to it, the use of brass evoking funeral marches for prime ministers who died during the 1950s, yet the vocals are far more 3009 AD. Budding film makers, we dare you to make a piece that doest this filmless soundtrack justice.
So far, no two tracks have sounded the same. 'Pneumonia' however, strong though it is, does seem to re-use the same brass backing trick that so much of 'Volta' employs, and as such fails to stand out quite as strikingly as other points on the record. A similar thing happens with 'Hope', another Timbaland produced effort which, though it merits much applause, doesn't quite slap you round the face with as much force as 'Earth Intruders' or 'Innocence' do. Still, being confronted with two things as bracing as 'Declare Independence' (which, we sh*t you not, sounds like Throbbing Gristle) in a row might have been a little much, and what with its glitchy electro bassline, it does strike with much more force given that it follows a relatively placid piece. If reports are to be believed, the subject matter of the song concerns the people of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, and lyrically it leaves us in no doubt as to Bjork's political stance as she howls the words "declare independence! Don't let them do that to you! Start your own currency, make your own stamp, protect your language!" in your ears.
The experimental time has yielded mesmerizing results. An album whose fifty minutes fly by in the blink of an eye ends on 'My Juvenile', a track dedicated to her own dear children and also the second duet with old Antony, confirming that two better singers on this green earth at the moment simply do not exist. Bjork can even get away with using awkward phrases like "you are my biggest laugh, I clumsily try to free you from me" (any other singers you know would include the word 'clumsily' in a song?), so strong and sweet is her delivery. It wraps up one of the most important musical events in recent memory with one final clang as the gauntlet hits the floor, Bjork having thrown it down in front of the gaze of her peers. . "World," says Volta, "raise your game."
Stream 'Earth Intruders' and 'Innocence' from 'Volta' HERE.
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