Icelandic singer and producer Björk (“Country Creatures”) released her tenth studio album “Fossora” on Sept. 30. The album comes five years after the release of her last project, the folktronica-inspired “Utopia.” “Fossora” takes a new sound holding up to the quirky techno-jazz promised from singles “Atopos” and “Ovule.” Whether the album’s total embrace of hardcore gabber operates as artful or grating is a different question.
The general sound of “Fossora’’ is a coalescence of pretty wind sections of clarinets and trombones assisted by harsh, pounding techno thumps. They can electrify a track like “Atopos” with an injection of both experimentation and danceability. As a lead single, “Atopos” sounds like a merge of nature, represented by an orchestra, and technology, represented by electronics, a common theme in Björk’s music. Her lyrics lament the hesitance of a lover from commitment, asking “Are these not just excuses to not connect?” The ferocious closure of the song leaves us with murderous beats and pleas from Björk that “hope is a muscle.”
“Ovule” is a meditation with more compassion than the fairy-diva evoked on “Atopos.” Björk sings of enchanting a glass egg as a metaphor for conceiving a future with this lover, thanks to their “romantic intelligence” and “sensual tenderness.” The song is led by triumphant trombones and a subtle drum beat by electronic trio Sideproject (“Isis Emoji”). “Ovule’’ is a theatrical, heart-warming, standout track with a melody that treats the ear like velvet cake.
These tracks open the album and leave a listener enticed for an experience of energy and beauty. It pains one to say that for most of this album, the energy induces headaches, and the beauty wears out its welcome with its lack of direction and bothersome abstraction.
The rest of the album overbears itself with ideas that seem impressive but in execution are way too drawn out. In “Ancestress,” Björk mourns her mother’s passing. It hurts to say, but the track does not justify its seven minute length. The emotional chorus feels misplaced in a cacophony of bells, cheesy pizzicato, on-the-nose clock samples and rhythmically and thematically jarring gabber beats.
The title track faces the blunt of the aforementioned issues to a gaudy extreme. Björk doubles down on the fungal imagery by describing spores shooting toward the ground, “that penetrate concrete and plastic.” The clarinets recall the jazzy side of “Atopos” but the underlying beats sound like a bored infant is squeaking a dog toy into the mic. The last half is pure torture of clatter and noise. The repetition of the title is the cruelest bout of being completely out of touch on the record.
Thrice on the album Björk includes random interludes that are the bow to the album’s kind message of overcompensation. “Mycelia” and “Trölla-Gabba” have such oddly dry and choppy production that one may ask if she has been on a 100 gecs (“Doritos and Fritos”) binge. The mix of dissonant a capella and vocal splicing emulates those wooden train whistle toys you find at craft shows. “Trölla-Gabba” in particular adds these harsh, metallic noise samples that sound like a kamikaze massacring a bunch of circus animals.
The third interlude’s severely ethnic title of “Fagurt Er í Fjörðum” may sound like a gnome’s homophobic taunt, but the lyrics come from Icelandic poet Látra-Björg and describe the beauty of the country’s landscape. In the context of the album it seems last minute, but it is sentimental enough to warrant its place.
This album marks a return of an aging queen with something to say to her subjects, but this effort seems like a scientific experiment gone wrong. “Fossora” is a product of One Little Independent Records.
Image from Björk via YouTube
