REVIEW: BJORK - FOSSORA

4/5

Love Lockdown.

Beethoven. Mozart. Sinatra. Aretha. Dylan. Springsteen. Madonna. Prince. When it comes down to the greatest names in music and all they've done for the art form, Björk has her place on the shortlist, on a first name basis like John, Paul, George and Ringo. Yet, none of the aforementioned have moved music quite like her. She is an instrument in herself and continues to push the envelope of the genre like a love letter to music itself, serving as a postcard from her native Iceland. From 'Venus As A Boy' to 'It's Oh So Quiet', screaming. The icon has changed, but stayed her own, true self so many times and over amazing album after amazing album. Her 'Big Time Sensuality' taking her 'round New York on a big wheel in 90s black and white. She's a legend and even the world tour she's about to embark on (fingers-crossed, entering the lottery, here in Tokyo) comes in two forms. Orchestral or cornucopia, as you like it. Ready for another big riot? 

Blowing more than a fuse, Björk, who cultivates pure creativity, is back for the first time in five years (2018's 'Utopia') with a grand return like The Mars Volta, this month. The One Little Independent record 'Fossora' of avant-garde, techno pop a tribute in part to her late mother, Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, who she lost in 2018,a year after her last release. 'Sorrowful Soil' a moving tribute, chapter and verse. "In a woman's lifetime/She gets four hundred eggs/But only two or three nests/Woven with a mother's life force (Woven with a mother's life force)/Emotional textile (Woven with a mother's life force, woven with a mother's life force)/Self-sacrificial (Woven with a mother's life force)/This is emotional textile/Self-sacrificial, self-sacrificial." Dealing with grief with grace, just like on the third-single 'Ancestress' featuring Sindri Eldon. "She had idiosyncratic sense of rhythm/Dyslexia, the ultimate freeform/She invents words and adds syllables/Hand-writing, language all her own", lamenting the love of this wonderful woman, all her own like the child she raised. 

Other collaborations feature Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney on the closing door of 'Her Mother's House', finishing this album. And the amazing 'Atopos' sonic single featuring Kasimyn and its vivid video like the album artwork of fungus metaphor of something that lives underground and psychedelic pops up everywhere. Now, if you think Sindri and Ísadóra feel familiar, that's because they're Björk's children. Continuing the legacy of family, from the roots their grandmother left. In all the epic experimentation of Björk's career, this is truly what completes it and makes it great. Refusing to give in to 'Victimhood', or 'Freefall', Björk innovates her own emotions, just like her soundboard. 

Kasimyn, on the other hand, also features on the 'Trölla-Gabba' inspired instrumental and the iconic title-track. Whilst a serpentwithfeet (but no shift or space bars) licks at the toes of a 'Fungal City' (which might just be a bad case of athlete's foot). Still, it's 'Allow' with Emilie Nicolas that allows so much more sonically and spiritually. Lyrics like, "The warm, open wind on my skin/Primordial, a plants glazed at me/With moisture directed at me, erupts/My hair fossilised with salt and crust", showing the proof that Björk's poetry is just as potent as her instrumental artistry. The second-single and track of 'Fossora', 'Ovule' is outstanding. "The hostility a broken heart endures/The velocity of that injury is returned to thе world/With the same grin showing teeth", the Icelandic queen sings on a song of "romantic intelligence" and "sensual tenderness" in its "digital selves, embracing and kissing."

Electric, eclectic and of course epic. The latest in Björk's chronology, conceptualized during COVID-19's lockdown, is all about love. All the way to her native home. Mushroomed through the strings and roots of, as she puts it, "survival, death and ecological meditation". Because this album also deals with the difficulty and darkness of her divorce, as she now comes out from the soil and sorrow to bloom anew. 'Fagurt Er í Fjörðum' is formidable, but on 'Mycelia' you can feel it now, without a word. 'Her Mother's House' tells us with and for her daughter, "The space in your voice/Shows the scale of your compassion/The tone of your voice/Reveals the space you give others," with the moving message of generational grace, "the more I love you, the stronger you become." 'Fossora' translates as the ungrammatical feminine version of the Latin word for "digger". And as Björk mines more in our music, this genre-less form of expression continues to grow like our hearts, in kind. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Atopos (Feat. Kasimyn),' 'Sorrowful Soil', 'Her Mother's House (Feat. Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney)'.