Bjork - VULNICURA Album Review and Download

There’s something remarkably intimate about hearing Björk, in that Icelandic-accented, birdsong voice, confi ding on History Of Touches how “I wake you up in the middle of the night/To express my love for you”. If that thought appeals, think again: Vulnicura is a bleak, complex break-up album about her relationship with artist Matthew Barney – which ended in 2013 – and each song is dated for its place in that process. History Of Touches’ text relates a period “three months before”, but by Black Lake, fi ve months later, she’s declaring, “I am one wound”. Violently happy she is not. Björk’s been moving increasingly in this elaborately sophisticated direction for a while.
In 2004 on Medúlla she was experimenting with an a cappella approach, and 2011’s Biophilia wasn’t exactly easily digestible. Fortunately, Vulnicura isn’t as intimidating as her soundtrack to Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9: on Lionsong, her voice traces a simple melody, an understated beat twitching beneath her vulnerable wails, while Atom Dance finds her voice hushed amid pizzicato strings, with Antony Hegarty’s treated choirboy vocals like shattered, frosted glass.

Nonetheless, Vulnicura’s occasionally self-referential content insists upon careful attention. Wordy lyrical themes are investigated over different songs, and its melodies, too, are sometimes familiar: the opening moments of History Of Touches, for instance, recall 1993’s The Anchor Song. But though much here is bewildering, bewitching and exotic, by the time Quicksand closes the record, Björk’s almost approachable again. Vulnicura is hardly easy listening in any sense. Sure, there’s a 14-piece choir on Mouth Mantra, as well as strings arranged by Björk herself, but this is a stark and demanding collection of confrontational, confessional art, underlined by the presence of perfectionist programmerproducers The Haxan Cloak and Arca. Documenting her progress from a need to “synchronise our feelings” – on the forlorn but sophisticated Stonemilker – to her resolution to “step into the beam” amid the skittering, percussive Quicksand, Vulnicura is often draining, yet fulfi lling for those prepared to immerse themselves in its depths.
Score: 80/100