Review: Björk - Vulnurica
By Jordan Matthiass, Contributor
[One Little Indian; 2015]
Rating: 9/10
Key Tracks: “Black Lake,” “Stonemilker,” “Atom Dance”
Let’s get the precedent information about Vulnicura out of the way, because you’ve heard it already. Björk’s ninth studio album was meant to drop in early March 2015 in order to accompany the opening of an extensive MoMA career retrospective, but following a leak in early January, Björk rushed the LP’s release to help put its subject matter behind her.
The subject matter? Vulnicura has the distinction of being Björk’s first true cry-yourself-to-sleep album. The artist herself has said that the release is a “complete heartbreak album,” cataloging the decline and death of her relationship with visual artist Matthew Barney, with whom the singer had a family and many years of history.
When most artists drop a “sad” record, eyes roll; however, when Björk, one of the most collected songwriters of today, can hardly get through an interview because she’s crying so much, many questions are raised. Is this it? Has Björk’s indomitable optimism, the very core of her Scandinavian charm, been broken?
Without a doubt, Vulnicura answers with a resounding, string-laden “Yes.”
Vulnurica follows Björk's tradition of outputting albums of purposeful composition; it is split into three distinct sections, comprised of three songs each. The first, with tracks subtitled “9 months before,” “5 months before” and “3 months before,” captures the crumbling of love and life.
“Stonemilker” opens the album with a fantastically-realized string section the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Björk’s discography for upwards of a decade. Every strum, pluck and bow comes out richly and clearly, unmuddied by the conventions of late-’90s trip-hop. This is an orchestral affair, one that carries significant weight behind our heroine’s heart-rending cries of “Who is open-chested / And who has coagulated. ”
The next section is the one that really stabs you in the chest. Songs carry the supplements “2 months after,” “6 months after” and “11 months after,” representing the hardest period of a romantic dissolution. This is the darkest-sounding portion, featuring grim lyrics and instrumental help from electronic spooksters Arca (featured on most of the album) and The Haxan Cloak (featured, to great effect, only on the chilling “Family”).
“Black Lake,” track four, is everything. At 10 minutes long, it splits the album and says everything that need be said. Strings swirl in a eulogy for a fractured love. Björk pierces the fugue in her most sombre and clean vocal take ever. “Our love was my womb / But our bond has broken / My shield is gone / My protection is taken.”
The tempest of “Black Lake” ebbs and flows organically, drifting too smoothly in the darkness of loss. Björk wonders aloud whether she loved too much as Arca’s wonderful co-production truly rears its head for the first time, bringing syncopated and malformed beats to the crux of the track. If the death of love needed a mission statement, it has found such in “Black Lake.”
Before Vulnicura ends, Björk’s inborn optimism thankfully seeps quietly into the gloom. The final section, lacking subtitles, is an appendix for and response to the other pieces.
“Atom Dance,” a track featuring longtime collaborator Antony Hegarty, pushes away the sting of Vulnicura’s first two-thirds to recall brighter days. “No one is a lover alone,” Björk intones and Hegarty replies, edging out a smile from the listener for the first time in 35 minutes. A jubilant violin and a fun dance beat sing under the collaboration, calling to mind a celestial waltz in the spirit of Biophilia, a much, much happier album.
Vulnicura hasn’t been done before. Albums about loss tend to be quiet and melancholic, sporting little more substance than a few ballads. This opus, however, moonlights as a heartbreak album while maintaining the singer-songwriter’s irresistible proclivity for avant-garde musical ballet. It dips into the darker sides of yearning, but Vulnicura never allows itself to be downtrodden. There is strength in our Icelandic heroine’s pain and she lets it out. This is a Björk album in essence but in practice, it turns everything on its head.
