Tuesday, May 8, 2007
 

Has anyone else been listening to those leaked Guns N' Roses songs?  I think they're awful.  Anyway, let's talk Bjork today.  Over the last few weeks I put Earth Intruders, from Volta, in the podcast and I posted her SNL performance of the track just this past Saturday.  Now with the album becoming available for the masses today I figured it was time to roll out a more in-depth ramble and to stop beating around the bush.  The disc is her six full length and comes about three years after the stellar voice-centric Medulla, which is a favorite of mine.  Volta doesn't necessarily resemble much of that effort, but it does feature her sound with a touch of bombastic familiarity since Timbaland, Antony Hegarty and Brian Chippendale were involved in the creative process.  Enjoy.

:Bjork - Declare Independence:  This one is intense.  Bjork's vocals sound like something that were taken out of an unreleased industrial-heavy b-side from Nine Inch Nails.  When she starts emphatically yelling "Raise your flag//Higher higher/Raise your flag" and "Declare independence/Don't let them do that to you," I feel the need to grab a burning torch and spend at least a week camped outside the Whitehouse in pure revolt mode.  Too bad the song was actually written in support Greenland's secession from Denmark, and not the US from Dubya.

:Bjork - Innocence:  Outside of Earth Intruders this is the only other song that I know for sure was produced by Timbaland, who has now surprisingly been mentioned two days in a row here at SOTO.  I really like how the sound here features his trademark crisp production, but instead of making what he does the focus of the song his work is laid beneath various effects and an almost overpowering Bjork.  I like Earth Intruders a lot but I think that Innocence is a much more creative and effective use of the Timbajork combo.

PS - Try your best to ignore what might be some of the ugliest artwork in recent memory.

- John Laird -



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