Music Reviews

The return of the queen.

Yes, the rumors are true, Björk is back with a brand new release out – following her pretty decent 2017 album „Utopia“ Björk took a much needed break from releasing albums back to back and finally after five whole years decided to come back with once again this brand new sound and aesthethic and boy is it a weird one for even Björk standarts.

The teaser tracks to this thing were all very… Abstract to say the least and you know that’s to be expected with Björk but there was just something… Off with these songs – take the opener „Atopos“ for example, it starts off with these sequenced drums that sound like a march coming towards you followed by just a plethora of sounds ranging from horns, strings and whatever else is in there I honestly still have a hard time pinning that down. It mashes together really awkwardly the first time you hear it but it becomes clear that it’s very intentionala and creates this reall uncomfortable feeling that doesn’t really let go throughout the entire album. Björk sings her absolute heart over this chaos only giving more fuel into the fire. Then if all that wasn’t enough these just alarming synths with huge bass appear in the second half making the track feel even more like some ancient evil is chasing you in a dark corridor. After repeated listens the song is honestly an absolute masterclass at setting the tone for the rest of this thing, it immidiately let’s you know that you’re in for one hell of a ride. This is followed by the next song and also a single „Ovule“, probably the most song-like sounding song on this album. The horns on this are really pleasant for a change and it serves as a nice breathing room between what just came and what’s about to come. The song features similar drums to the last one but in this context it’s much more catchy and just overall just less scary. „Mycelia“ is the next song and it’s right back to the weirdness – it’s all essentially an acapella consisting of just snipets of sounds that clash together in this really haunting experience. It’s more of an interlude than anything but I still commend Björk for experimenting. After that we have „Sorrowful Soil“ which much like the last song is mostly acapella but this time around with actual lyrics in which Björk talks about her complicated and painful roots and her ancestors , a theme that’s brought up many times throughout this album. Speaking of which the next song „Ancestress“ is a 7-minute beast of a track just about that – this song was also one of the singles for this album which is like the most Björk thing to do to have the longest and one of the most hard to swallow tracks as your single. Anyways the song is very long-winded with beautiful orchestral pieces scattered througout that slowly but surely all colide together around the halfway mark – then the song quiets down a bit and starts building up again for another crescendo that ends as fast as it comes – then silence again. The song play VERY WELL with this dynamic and makes for an amazing centrepiece in this album. Combine that with Björk’s heavenly singing and introspective lyrics and you have yourself one of the best Björk songs period which yes is saying a lot. After that comes another short interlude that I honestly won’t even mention and we’re thrown right into the secod longest track on the album „Victimhood“ which manages to be just a few seconds short of those seven minutes. This song build on the last song with much darker orchestration and more lowkey sound, it’s honestly one of the most haunting and sorrowful moments on this whole album. The electronic elements of course find themselves a way in aswell, at around the 4 minute mark there is this EDM-esk beat that just comes out of nowhere and once again only adds to the chaos, then just after like a minute just vanishes completely, it’s so random but it works very well and doesn’t break the immersion at all, only adds to it. Then at the last leg of the song it just goes almost full techno for a moment and then transitions into an acapella outro – I mean it’s just so unpredictable, you never know what’s around the corner and I love that about it. „Allow“ is next and honestly I don’t have much to say about this one besides the fact that it sounds very sweet and the flute-work on this song is on another level, like seriously LISTEN TO THEM GO. Maybe I wish the song was a bit more memorable (she just keeps repeating the word „allow“ over and over again for the majority of the song) but it continues the vibe very well and there are some genuinely angelic vocal passages towards the end so I can’t complain that much. The next song „Fungal City“ sounds EXACTLY like the title implies, everytime I listen to it I just imagine a magical forest full of mushroom trees with a full society living in them, it’s unreal the imagery this song paints. The orchestration sounds straight out of some old Disney film with just a tad of electronic madness sprinkled throughout. And Björk’s voice was like born for this aesthethic, she feels super comfortable over it all. Definetly one of the best tracks on the album for sure, the sheer ammount of musicianship is just one a whole nother level with this one. There is another interlude before the next song „Freefall“ but the interludes are honestly like the least intresting parts of the album, they don’t ruin it or anything but are just kind of meh, but just know that they are there. Anyways „Freefall“ – yeah this one’s pretty standart Björk. It’s really heartbreaking and full of genuine emotional ache and pain, it makes me just sad – this is like the sad part of the Disney movie. Her performance is super powerfull on this one aswell, like the pain in her voice with the ascending strings is like a top 3 moment from this album, super underrated song. The switch up is also pretty neat, one of the most seamless and effortless switches on this whole album, the faster strings make for some really pretty musical passages and this time repeating „illuminate“ all over again and again only adds to it in my opinion rather than take away from it. Yeah, this one’s a pretty good one. ANYWAYS the title track Fossora is on a whole nother level of good, dare I say even great. No seriously, this is my favorite song on this album for a reason – it just mixes all the great parts of this album into one spectacular experience that ends with the biggest and most powerful and earth-shattering musical crescendo of this whole album. The pummeling bass and drums with the super abrasive synths make for an absolute musical treat that I just wish lasted longer – it honestly feels like the whole album has been building up to this moment, it’s just so climactic and insane, words can’t do it justice, but when it comes you just absolutely ascend. So yeah, this one’s pretty alright if I do say so myself – anyways onto the next and final song of this album „Her Mother’s House“ which is like the perfect musical and lyrical ending for this album. It’s like the most beautiful calm after the storm you’ve ever heard and puts a nice little bow on this whole album making it feel like a full journey and experience.

So yes, if you couldn’t tell, this is in my opinion of Björk’s best bodys of work to date. Super pleased with how it turned out and even though I could probably do without some of the interludes and some tracks do drag on a bit too long this is honestly through and through spectacular. Can’t wait to see where Björk comes next.

-favorite tracks: Atopos, Ovula, Ancestress, Victimhood, Fungal City, Trölla-Gabba, Freefall, Fossora, Her Mother’s House

-least favorite tracks: like two of the interludes and maybe Sorrowful Soil??

Strong 8/10

So, after the two major releases of this year so far (those being the new Earl Sweatshirt and The Weeknd records) I wanted to branch out and try something new for a change. And while I was browsing the dark dark lands of rate your music, I stumbled upon this – a brand new Bonobo album. The album mainly caught my eye with it’s SUPER relaxing album cover, which is slowly becoming one of my favorite album covers to look at in a long time. But you didn’t come here to listen to me praise this album cover, I’m here to critique the music – so is it any good? Well at it’s worst, Fragments is some really nice background music that might lack some punch to it, but is overall harmless – but at it’s best it’s some of the finest most well-crafted house beats I’ve heard all year (which considering this year just started out is not saying much, but you get what I mean). I didn’t really have high expectations going into this record since I know little to nothing about this guy’s music, but this honestly kinda blew me away – like I expected something really chill, somehting I could just put in the background and just vibe to, but got so much more out of – these songs have so much life, hope and emotion in them, it’s like the cover perfectly represents what the music sounds like.

Right off the back, there are no songs I like actively dislike off this album – some just hit harder than others and some just stick out more then others. That being said, some stand out tracks for me definetly include tracks like the short but sweet opener „Polyghost“, AKA the perfect tone-setter for this whole album – like if you don’t like what you hear on this song here then you are probably better off listening to something else. Then definetly the song that right follows this one „Shadows“, which might just have my favorite beat off of this album and also my favorite vocal performance (from the featured artist Jordan Rakei) for sure – yeah, there is a lot to like about this song. Probably the most ambitious cut this album provides is „Otomo“, which has GOT TO BE one of the BEST drops I’ve heard probably like ever – like sure, this song takes time to get to that point, but if you give it that time, if you’re patient enough, it will reward you that much more. Seriously, I can’t get over the RUSH of dopamine I get when the drop on this song comes, it’s pretty much flawless. „Tides“ with Jamilia Woods is also pretty sweet and serves as a nice cooldown after the hellride that was Otomo – her vocals compliment the track pretty well and it’s another sweet-sounding piece to the puzzle. „Closer“, another one of my favorites, has such an unexplainable atmosphere surrounding it – the synth work on here is also out of this world, like innitially I didn’t really think all that much about the song, but the second the synths hit, it was like I was transpored into another dimension – yeah, this track is pretty much saved by them. Now my personal faorite song is hands down „Age of Phase“, which has THE most infectious sample and melody on this whole album, it’s like Crystal Castle’s „Kept“ but like the lofi hip-hop beats to study to version of it. I could honestly listen just to that sample alone for hours and not get tired of it. Now that’s pretty much about it for the GREAT songs, you know, the „best and most well-crafted house beats of the year“ songs. Now as for the rest of the album… It’s okay still. And there is a lot of beauty to be found in the rest of these tracks – „Elysian“ has a nice string section attached to it, „From You“ with Joji has a nice Joji attached to it and „Sapien“ is honestly kinda underrated, the song is generally seen as one of the worst on the album and I just don’t find that to be the case – but honestly they all still just lack something extra the other ones have. Most of these track are also located on the second half of the album, so yeah, this album is pretty front-loaded, but not to the point where the second half is not worth listening to, I would compare it to the new The Weeknd album in that regard, where it’s good as a whole, but the first half obviously out-shines the second half.

(God, I never know how to wrap these things up) uhhh so YEAH, not bad first impression if I do say so myself – this record isn’t much and you won’t get much out of it expecting much – but what it is is a fun chill ride, that if you give it the benefit of the doubt can take you on a blissful journey. (also this album is a way for me to try this new „favorite/least favorite songs“ feature I definetly thought of myself and didn’t just shamelessly steal from Fantano and other creators)

-favorite tracks: Shadows, Otomo, Closer, Age of Phase

-least favorite tracks: Day by Day, Counterpart

Light 7/10

So, I never really got the hype around Porter Robinson – funny enough, I was actually introduced to him through his not as critically aclaimed EP „Spitfire“ which I was very conflicted on – there were few key tracks I reall dug, but besides that there wasn’t much of anything that really stood out to me. His first full length LP „Worlds“ is a different story though – it was a much more cohesive and enjoyable record overall, but still, even there, something just wasn’t clicking – I absolutely adore some of the cuts of of there, but the whole project didn’t do it for me nearly as much as it di for others. Now here we are, in the present day, with Robinson’s second full length LP „Nurture“ and this may be my low expectations going into this, but Jesus, this is the most cohesive, mature and fully-realised Robinson has EVER sounded on a full-length project.

Now let’s break this track by track, there is really a lot to unpack here. For starters the opener „Lifelike“ doesn’t even feel like a Porter Robinson, more like some sort of critically aclaimed post-rock outfit, really a beautiful collage of sounds and strings. The way it tranisitions into „Look a the Sky is also just mind-blowing, almost as much as the song itself, beacuse this is easily some of the best synthpop I have heard in a very long time – one of my favorite songs of the year by a long shot. „Get You Wish“ follows on the same formula as the last song with more piano-driven beat, it feels much more natural (or should I say nurtural? Okay, I’ll see myself out now…), which is a very weird thing to say about Porter Robinon’s music, considering how electronic and robotic it usually sounds – this album is really just a hybrid of these two sides and it just clashes together in this beautiful mix of sounds and colours. The song „Wind Tempos“ takes a much more ambient approach with it’s sound, sort of like a really long-winded (get it) interlude, that transitions smoothly into „Musician“, a song with a much more Porter Robinsons sound then what we have been shown so far, but still with a few minor twists on it – it’s really glitchy, glossy and light-hearted, like a heartfelt hug from a robot. The song „do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do“ starts of as a more mellow, more guitar-driven tracks, that quickly reveals it’s true collors with once again more glitchy production, insane walls of keys and whatever else is burried in the mix and it all just manages to work somehow. The highlight of the song „Mother“ really is the subject matter and the lyrics, more then the sound of the song itself – Porter here expresses his love for not only his mother, but for both of his parents, it’s really the emotional highlight of the album. Now the song, if you can even call it that, „dullscytche“, is a really all over the place instrumental, that only finds it’s path towards the end of the song, it’s and intresting blend of sounds – the first half almost sounds like a leftover out of an „Igorrr“ project, for some reason. The song this interlude of sorts tranistions into „Sweet Time“ is a really heartfelt ballad, that just makes my eyes wet everytime it comes on, the lyrics and the way they are delivered are really what sells me on this one – it doesn’t have to be crazy experimental for it to hit hard. Now around this point in the album I sometimes get the feeling the songs are just sort of repeating themselves – „Mirror“ is structually and also sound-wise basically an almost identical copy of Get Your Wish. That doesn’t make it a bad song, but it just doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The song „Something Comforting“ really lives up to it’s name, it’s probably also one of the most epic songs on here, it’s really an ear-hug, a really anthemic one at that. The way the drop just kicks in is out of this world (which is fitting, because it also sounds like something straight out of Robinson’s last album Worlds). The follow-up „Blossom“ is possibly the most nature-sounding song on this whole album, just a nice little guitar ballad, that serves as a nice breath of fresh air before the final leg of the album, not much else to say about it. Now the song „Unfold“ picks the intensity up again to the maximum with a much more anthemic sound. The drums sound really crisp and the bridge is something straight out of a Kanye album, before the final explosion that just blows most of the drops on „Worlds“ out of water. The closer „Trying to Feel Alive“ really sums up the whole feel this album is going for – just trying to feel anything in the emptiness that surrounds us in these difficult times, it screams like a sign of hope, that there are better times ahead of us.

So from the reception this has been getting so far, I feel like people are just not listening to this the right way – instead of focusing on individual tracks, try to listen to this as one whole cohesive expirience, then it all just comes full circle and suddenly makes sense, even if the sound is not necessarily for you, please at least give it a shot, it’s a really comforting and anthemic album that just fills me up with hope everytime I listen to it.

Light 8/10