Björk explains the elements that make up her sound
How do you possibly define an artist like Björk? Emerging from Iceland in the mid-1970s, the enigmatic artist started her career before she even hit her teenage years, releasing her self-titled debut in 1977. She then dabbled in various different genres and bands, most notably The Sugarcubes, picking up strange influences along the way that would eventually contribute to her distinctive solo sound.
In the early 1990s, Björk reintroduced herself with Debut, a record that showed off her powerful, purposefully strained vocals and her talent as a genre-blending producer. Since then, each new record has only built upon that reputation. Post gave us the blistering ‘Army of Me’ and the simultaneously dainty and dramatic ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’. Homogenic was a masterpiece of electronic experimentation, and Vespertine provided a dose of all-enveloping glitchy goodness.
Even now, Björk continues to show off her prowess as a vocalist and a producer. Her most recent collection of new music, 2022’s Fossora, was a harsh collection of noise illuminated by natural imagery. But while discussing the album during a chat with The Atlantic, Björk seemed to suggest that her new artistry and approach has often been misunderstood by audiences, detached from her old work when, really, it’s a continuation.
Björk addressed the idea that her sound has mellowed over the years, preferring experimentation to fun electronica, but the Icelandic avant-gardist attributes this to false memories. “Maybe they remember themselves in some club doing ecstasy and there were three remixes in a row,” she joked. Björk maintained that her songwriting formula has never changed.
She explained the elements she finds herself returning to on each album to concoct a similar songwriting potion. The BPM, ease and edginess are all balanced out into something she sees as fairly consistent. “Overall,” she explained, “The BPM, or the amount of chill, or the amount of experimental, or the amount of pop sugar, or the amount of self-reflective, serious moments — I think it’s actually sort of been the same throughout my albums.”
On Debut, for example, ‘Venus As A Boy’ is one of those more chill moments, a trip-hop-style mix of strings and gorgeous synth lines. Meanwhile, ‘Big Time Sensuality’ is a more club-ready offering, a mix of bouncy techno prime for remixing. In the same way, Fossora features strange, more meditative tracks like ‘Fagurt Er ì Fjörðum’ alongside even stranger, experimental techno on the title track.
It’s up to listeners to interpret Björk’s catalogue as they wish, compare her old offerings with the new ones, and find the consistencies and discrepancies between them. But if you ask Björk, there’s little of the latter to be found. Of course, her artistic interests have morphed and moved on, but those key elements of her sound, her penchant for offsetting the experimental with the calm, the pop with the intense, will always remain.
Even with Björk’s personal description of her own sound, she still remains one of the most difficult artists to describe and define. As much as she leans on those styles and sounds that span her entire catalogue, each new album, the strange songs within it and the strange artwork that generally accompanies it, is truly unpredictable. And that is, perhaps, the most essential part of her artistry.
