My opinion before tonight’s performance was that any talk of Björk transcending genre is trite. Unlike say Elvis or Madonna who were completely brilliant at spotting the next big thing and making it cross over, she is truly original. When historians look back for those phase shifts in 20th century music, those moments of catalysis, she will be there alongside Schoenberg and Malcolm McLaren.
Tonight then always felt like it was going to be a big moment, and that’s how it turned out. You would expect nothing other than for her to eschew capital cities to premier her new material for 7 nights in an old market hall attached to a museum in Manchester. Add to this the manufacture of completely new instruments. You can read about these here https://godisinthetvzine.co.uk/index.php/2011/06/30/watch-bjork-the-making-of-gameleste/
The most ambitious of these was the pendulum harp which puts the music directly in touch with gravity as the strings click and shunt up and down the arms of the machine like some behemoth of the industrial revolution, in order to rotate to new positions and catch on plectrums while the massive 6 pendulums (penduli?) swing slowly back and forth.The night was hugely based around the new work – Biophilia. There was back catalogue but the closest things to greatest hits were tracks such as ‘Hidden Place’, ‘Isobel’ or ‘Declare Independence’ – this last track being in the encore, and the point where Björk mentioned that “dancing might be appropriate”. Most of the audience simply stood and stared in awe, and the odd shout of “we love you Björk” felt awkward and out of place. The new material is, at one and the same time, Björk at her most and least experimental. Tonight’s performance was aided by those new instruments, but for the most part was vocal, choral and almost conventional in delivery. Björk was joined on stage for nearly every song by a 24 strong barefoot choir of Scandinavian girls, their soaring voices being underscored at some points by the sturm and drang of basement shaking industrial, or in other moments by delicate strings and chimes. In contrast to her choir, Björk was smartly dressed in tottering heels and a sequined dress; the shoes, her pancaked face and the formal movements of the night making her look as though she had bizarrely stepped from a Kabuki stage. The performance was in the round, the crowd on four sides being treated in turn to either the choir or Björk’s face or back. Biophilia is about our relationship with the world, both physical and spiritual. The new songs had recorded, portentous introductions by David Attenborough. The accompanying vignettes of film overhead – volcanoes, rotting creatures on the seabed being devoured by starfish were, to be honest, just what you’d expect. I’m not in any way convinced that when the album comes out, as a series of iPad apps or however they do it, that it’s going to sound exactly like this – a case in point being the first track to be released, ‘Crytalline’ which feels very different in its released recorded form. Despite, or perhaps because of the lack of any sing along moments, the night felt awe inspiring. It was hugely adventurous, the boldness paid off and rewarded. My earlier opinion about Björk Guðmundsdóttir’s place in modern musical history was simply reinforced.
Thunderbolt / Moon / Crystalline / Hollow / Dark Matter / Hidden Place / Mouth’s Cradle / Isobel / Virus / It’s Not Up To You / Sacrifice / Sonnets / Unrealities / Where Is The Line / Mutual Core / All Is Full Of Love / Cosmogony / Solstice // One Day / Declare Independence / Nattura
Photos by kind permission of purplepr.com
