Bjork Homogenic

Bjork's first non-soundtrack album since HOMOGENIC is positively pastoral compared with that release's experimental electronic textures. Swathed in strings … Full Descriptionand laced with beautiful choral arrangements, VESPERTINE has more in common with SELMASONGS, echoing that DANCER IN THE DARK soundtrack album's meandering melody lines, while smoothing out and adding an ethereal sheen to the more angular approaches of the singer's previous work.
Here the idiosyncratic Icelander lets loose with her full range of vocal stylings, though even her most innocent, little-girl-lost persona can't hide her steely intelligence. The album-opening "Hidden Place" starts with foreboding electronic rhythms–it's about unspoken or unfulfilled desires, and it's simultaneously exotic-sounding and dripping with melancholy, a mood that persists until the gently cathartic "Undo," with its mantra-like line "It's not meant to be a strife/It's not meant to be a struggle uphill." Though VESPERTINE's textures might ostensibly seem smooth and seamless, beneath the surface Bjork's emotions run raw and exposed, as evidenced by the final naked outburst of "I love him" in the coda to "Pagan Poetry." VESPERTINE is Bjork's most mature, fully realized integration of her pastoral Icelandic roots and her contemporary electronica (electronic scamps Matmos and Matthew Herbert are collaborators here) inclinations to date.

Once again finding harmony and creating alchemy between seeming opposites, on Volta Björk is bold but thoughtful, delicate yet strong, accessible and avant. The intricacy and complexity of projects like Medúlla and Drawing Restraint 9 suggested that she might have left the more direct side of her work behind, but Volta's opening track and lead single, "Earth Intruders," puts that notion to rest: the song literally marches in, riding a bubbling, ritualistic beat courtesy of Timbaland and Konono No. 1's electric thumb-pianos. Björk howls "Turmoil! Carnage!" like incantations over the din, and after several albums' worth of beautiful whispers, it's a joy to hear her raise her voice and volume like this. "Wanderlust" follows and provides the yin to "Earth Intruders"' yang, its horns and brooding melody giving it the feel of a moodier, more contemplative version of "The Anchor Song." These two songs set the tone for the rest of Volta's pendulum-like swings between sounds and moods, all of which are tied together by found-sound and brass-driven interludes that give the impression that the album was recorded in a harbor — an apt metaphor for how ideas and collaborators come and go on this album. Timbaland's beats resurface on "Innocence," another of Volta's most potent moments; a sample of what sounds like a man getting punched in the gut underscores Björk's viewpoint that purity is something powerful, not gentle. Antony and the Johnsons' Antony Hegarty lends his velvety voice to two outstanding but very different love songs: "The Dull Flame of Desire" captures swooning romance by pairing Björk and Hegarty's voices with a slowly building tattoo courtesy of Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale; "My Juvenile," which is dedicated to Björk's son Sindri, closes Volta with a much gentler duet. Considering how much sonic and emotional territory the album spans — from the brash, anthemic "Declare Independence," which sounds a bit like Homogenic's "Pluto," to "Pneumonia" and "Vertebrae by Vertebrae," which are as elliptical and gentle as anything on Vespertine or Drawing Restraint 9 — Volta could very easily sound scattered, but this isn't the case. Instead, it finds the perfect balance between the vibrancy of her poppier work in the '90s and her experiments in the 2000s. ~ Heather Phares. Al music.

Bjork - Voltaic (2009) [Special 2CD+2DVD Limited Edition] {Polydor}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 782 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 287 Mb | Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 85 Mb
DVD9 + DVD5 -> 6.18 Gb + 3.83 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | English LinearPCM, 2 ch / DTS, 6 ch / Dolby AC3, 6 ch | ~ 01h 33m + 1h 07m
© 2009 Polydor / Wellhart | 1797269 | 5% repair rar | ISO Images
Experimental Rock / Electronic / Alternative

Leave it to Björk to make a live album set that can be treated as part of her regular body of work rather than a side note. While Björk fans have occasionally complained about the amount of repackaging of her albums, Voltaic reaffirms just how important the live aspect is to her music, and provides a couple of different perspectives on it as well. Volta sparked a particularly inspired and lavish tour that, arguably, ended up being bigger than the actual album was, but tapped into the most dramatic, primal, and elegant aspects of Björk's art overall.

Bjork - Vulnicura Live (2016) {One Little Indian tplp1328cd}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 499 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 186 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 89 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 One Little Indian | tplp1328cd
Rock / Alternative / Experimental

Björk has always excelled at transforming intimate moments into compelling art that, no matter how grand its scope, retains its emotional truth. This was especially true of Vulnicura, an album that spelled out its philosophy in its title: Vulnerability is the only way to heal from pain – even if that openness may have led to getting hurt in the first place. Björk expanded on the album's wounded but resilient beauty with Vulnicura Strings, which emphasized the music's tiny glimmers of hope with acoustic warmth, and with Vulnicura Live, which transformed it into a spectacle in keeping with her other tours.

MTV Unplugged / MTV Live is an official DVD released by Björk on February 9, 2002. It features two complete MTV performances: the first show was recorded on MTV Unplugged in 1994 during the promotion of her second album, Debut, and the second show was recorded on MTV Live in 1998 for the promotion of her fourth album Homogenic. A cover of the track "My Funny Valentine" was performed on the MTV Unplugged performance but is not included on this DVD.

Kari Rueslåtten (Trondheim, October 3, 1973) is a Norwegian soprano singer, songwriter and keyboardist, who was well known for being the former lead singer and songwriter for the now disbanded Norwegian doom metal/experimental band, The 3rd and the Mortal from 1992 to 1994. The 3rd and the Mortal was one of the early bands that used a lead female singer in the metal scene, in which inspired bands such as The Gathering, Flowing Tears and Nightwish…