Happy 15th Anniversary to Björk’s sixth studio album Volta, originally released May 1, 2007.
Björk has never been one to color within the lines. Even her more pop focused outings—the glorious Debut (1993), its masterpiece follow-up Post (1995) and the wonderous Homogenic (1997)—still pushed the boundaries of what commercial success should look like. And in a post Homogenic world, Björk continued to dance further into the avant-garde exploring what melody and sound could do to express the emotions brewing inside her.
With her unique voice and dazzling production, Björk painted intriguing and intimate soundscapes with one stroke of her artistic brush and wild, expansive explorations with the next. Whether an album was deliberately challenging or pop-centric, one thing was always guaranteed: it was never boring.
After a run of albums that, by her own admission, felt overly serious, Björk yearned to produce a new swath of music that was more exciting and “up.” Rounding up a menagerie of producers and collaborators that ranged from mainstay partner-in-sound Mark Bell to hip-hop/R&B wunderkind Timbaland, a brass troupe made up of female musicians from her native Iceland, and Anohni from Antony and the Johnsons, Björk began a journey to dance into the light.
Despite early predictions that working with a producer of the ilk of Timbaland would see Björk crafting more hit-centric tracks, and a return to Debut/Post sensibilities, the resulting album Volta is a mesh between a decidedly more buoyant expression and further forays into the experimental. In essence, the best of the Björk that pleased and challenged the mainstream.
With a title that evokes energy and excitement, Volta is a celebration of rhythm and the exploration of melody and sounds. With a strong electro pulse that blips its way through the 51-minute expedition, Volta pushes Björk deeper into the avant-pop world and sees her discovering new terra firma, even if sometimes it feels she stands on shifting sands.
For his contributions, Timbaland certainly grounds Björk, anchoring her to the tribal beats that pound their way into your brain with the sparking “Earth Intruder” and the looping joy of “Innocence,” which veers closest to his signature sound and melodic structures without obscuring the intrigue and uniqueness of Björk.
Listen to the Album:
And it’s this uniqueness that keeps us coming back. To see where she will take us. And Björk is more interested in pushing things forward than lapsing into any comfort of repeating past hits. As she sings so pointedly on the marching horns meets crunchy beats of “Wanderlust,” “I have lost my origin / and I don’t want to find it again.”
When Björk twists and crashes styles together is when she is at her most inventive and intriguing. And just when you think you know where she is going to go next, she darts off into a new direction. She will draw you in on tracks like the sparse and intimate “I See Who You Are,” where a soothing looping sequence plays on repeat supporting her teasing voice, or in the gentle calm of “Pneumonia.” And then moments later, she flips the script with taught horn lines and unrelenting beats that scratch at the edge of the rhythm and create a beautiful tension as they do on “Vertebrae By Vertebrae” and elsewhere on “Declare Independence,” which acts as a rallying cry for both a native populace and a rising new generation against glitching synth runs and fuzzy hardcore beats.
On the two tracks where Björk duets with Anohni, the songs are perhaps the most conventional (or at least as conventional as Björk gets), with sparse and sparkly arrangements that let the back-and-forth between the two vocalists’ interplay and create a safe space of soul bearing.
Not quite the art-pop album it was touted to be, nor as accessible as some of its contributors suggested, Volta still sparks the imagination and showcases an artist happy to be galivanting in the avant-pop landscape, kicking up dirt and claiming new ground. By the time you decide whether or not you are going to tag along, Björk is already headed in a new direction.
Enjoyed this article? Read more about Björk here:
Debut (1993) | Post (1995) | Homogenic (1997) | Vespertine (2001)
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