Homogenic
Exclusive Review from Rolling Stone
Like her catastrophically beautiful homeland, Björk Gudmundsdottir is a marvel of working contradictions. She's a boho, high- profile dance diva and a fiercely private mother who made news by sparring with a Bangkok, Thailand, camera crew trying to photograph her son; she's a whimsical space cookie who spikes interviews with asides about polar bears and flying, fluffy teaspoons, and a tough pragmatist whose 1995 single "Army of Me" told a spineless lover to show some "self-sufficience, please/And get to work." And though she may look fragile from the outside, her fourth solo album, Homogenic, proves again that she's as tough and enduring as an Icelandic lava field.
Since her group, the Sugarcubes, broke up, in 1992, Björk has translated her personal paradoxes into records that pair classical music and pop standards with cutting-edge dance devices, and trilling love songs with rambunctious vocal experiments. Her first solo album, 1993's "Debut," put bop back into pop with offbeat songwriting and inviting, rave-inspired dance beats. The 1995 follow-up, "Post," pushed into more creative turf and prefigured electronic music's surge into the mainstream with its mix of looped beats and warm, huggy humanism.
The two years since have been tumultuous ones for Björk: Her
personal life became fodder for British gossip pages; her remix
LP,
"Telegram," met with mixed reviews; and she was nearly
on the receiving end of a letter bomb from a demented fan. The
album that
came out of all this turmoil, "Homogenic" - the first
that she's co-produced (with Mark Bell of LFO lending support on
most tracks) -
is her most quixotic and personal to date. It's also certain to
be rough going for fans looking for the sweet melodies and peppy
dance
collages of her earlier releases. "Homogenic" could
just as well be titled "Heterogenic": Live
instrumentation (much of it courtesy of
the Icelandic String Octet) and computer-generated sounds seem to
be juxtaposed rather than mixed, creating a mood of subtle
tension in which the album's structure appears perpetually near
collapse. Björk's voice floats across the tracks, emitting
chirps and
squeals like a kazoo, defiantly losing itself in a labyrinth of
echoing beats and shimmering strings.
On "Post," Björk seemed to be writing lyrics from the perspective of an eccentric homebody given to daydreaming; on "Homogenic," she leaves home and investigates love's bumpier back roads. Her soundtrack for the journey moves from the brash marching rhythm of "Hunter" ("If travel is searching/And home has been found/I'm not stopping/I'm going hunting") to the melodic euphoria of "All Neon Like" and, finally, to the discordant clatter of "Immature." Each song's arrangement underscores its lyrics' emotional impact: The album's first single, "Joga," features a bucolic string section battling with a storm of chaotic break beats, reflecting the singer's desire to remain in an erotic "state of emergency" that she finds both delicious and dangerous. "Bachelorette," like the on-and-off love affair it describes, extracts beauty from conflict, as guest arranger Eumir Deodato's lush orchestration spars with Mark Bell's mechanistic rhythm track, creating a dialectical tug of war that stubbornly evades resolution. And when the album's signature track, "Alarm Call," offers aphorisms both down-to-earth and transcendent ("I have walked this earth and watched people/I can be sincere and say I like them. . . . I'm no fucking Buddhist/ But this is enlightenment"), its accompaniment does the same, bringing its jousting strings and synthesizers together momentarily in a collective blast of down 'n' dirty funk.
With "Homogenic," Björk proves that good art, like good love, relies as much on the interplay of opposites as it does on fusion. Let other musicians blend electronica and rock into a pop pur'e9e; Björk celebrates difference and challenges listeners to explore the joys of contradiction with open ears and vivid imaginations. What's more, she does so without the safety net of instantly hummable hooks or predictable song structures. Instead she offers ingenuity with a human touch that's all too rare in the rock & rave '90s. That alone makes "Homogenic" one of the boldest - and most exciting - albums of the year. (RS 771)
Rolling Stone Network.
Quick Quotes :
Ranked #4 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums Of The
Year."
Spin 1/98, p.86
Ranked #9 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics'
Poll.
Village Voice 2/24/98
Ranked #33 on Melody Maker's list of 1997's "Albums Of
The Year."
Melody Maker 12/20-27/97, pp.66-67
Ranked #15 in NME's 1997 Critics' Poll.
New Musical Express 12/20-27/97,
pp.78-79
4 Stars (out of 5) - "...she leaves home and investigates
love's bumpier back roads....celebrates difference and challenges
listeners to explore the joys of contradiction with open ears and
vivid imagination....one of the boldest--and most exciting--
albums of the year."
Rolling Stone 10/16/97, pp.103-104
9 (out of 10) - "...the 31-year-old Reykjavik native's
new album delves deeply into hip-hop, flies in orchestras, and
proves
that the electronic generation will yield much more than a string
of dance epiphanies..."
Spin 10/97, p.135
9 (out of 10) - "...her third solo album, HOMOGENIC, is
probably her most weird, it is also her best....It is here...that
Björk
has delivered her most emotional, highly-charged and groovy
record, as well as a stinging triumph for the spirit of
adventure."
New Musical Express 9/20/97, p.54
"...may be Björk's most audacious move in a career
filled with them....On roughly half the album she and coproducer
Mark
Bell...take two seemingly incompatible genres--techno and
classical--and weld them together. It's like sneaking a boom box
into a chamber recital and seeing what happens..." - Rating:
A
Entertainment Weekly 9/26/97, pp.76-
Notes :
Personnel: Björk (vocals, keyboards); Gavin
Wright, Wilf Gibson, Peter Oxer, Roger Garland, Jim McLeod, Ben
Cruft, Perry
Montague-Mason, Vaughan Armon, Mark Berrow (violin); George
Robertson, Peter Lale, Roger Chase, Bill Hawkes (viola);
Martin Loveday, Helen Liebmann, Paul Kegg, John Tunnell (cello);
Helen Tunstall (harp); Alasdair Malloy (harmonica); Yasuhiro
Kobayashi (accordian); Jeff Bryant, Mike Thompson (horn); Mark
Bell (keyboards, programming, drum programming); Guy
Sigsworth (keyboards, clavichord, organ); Chris Laurence, Mike
Brittain, Paul Gardham, Paul Pritchard (bass); Steve Henderson
(timpani); Frank Ricotti (military snare); Trevor Morais
(electronic drums); Markus Dravs (programming, drum programming);
Richard Brown, Marius DeVries, Howie B. (programming); The
Icelandic String Octet.
Producers: Björk, Mark Bell, Guy Sigsworth, Howie B.
HOMOGENIC was nominated for a 1998 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance.
As one of modern music's most enigmatic and consistently entertaining personalities, Björk has never shied away from the edge. Whether making straight ahead dance music, exploratory modern rock, or even show-tune-caliber drama, her vision has always remained innovative and original. Her voice jumps, in the space of a syllable, from a kitten-like purr to a banshee's howl, and is never anything less than captivating. HOMOGENIC, her latest musical endeavor, finds her plunging headlong into electronica, a form well-suited to her intense, offbeat phrasing and tone.
From the skittering breakbeats and ghostly wails of the opening "Hunter" to the all-out electronic crash that is "Pluto," HOMOGENIC explores the melding of human and machine. The drama of "Batchlorette" finds a lush, rich string section following a tripping electronic beat, giving way to the Icelandic wonder's trademark wail. The juxtaposition of thoroughly modern sounds with conventional elements, such as symphonic arrangements, pipe organ, and accordion, form a central theme, to which HOMOGENIC's title undoubtedly refers. On HOMOGENIC, the traditional and the technological find their meeting point in Björk's soaring, otherworldly voice.