Bjork Retrospective
Saturday. 12'oclock noon. Björk glides onto Carnegie Hall's Perelman Stage along side Alarm Will Sound, Arca, and percussionist, Manu Delagofor. Her head covered by a gorgeous bursting star of iridescent tentacles.
2) Arca-lab
I've dreamt of seeing Björk live for many years—my 'secret' obsession with the Icelandic performance artist reached its peak during my years at Eastman School of Music, where I listened to her on a constant loop at times, almost as therapy, a way to cut to the core of emotions that musicians long to channel through their instrument. The more you listen to her music the more enchanted you become. I'm attracted to the way she puts words together, a brilliant analogist and expert dot connecter.
Never has Björk compromised her all encompassing art, something no ordinary person could achieve, taking the utmost discipline, dedication and sacrifice. In this way I would relate it to a religious calling, the artist equivalent of living like a monk or clergy. A life that is at least deserving of a MoMa retrospective. It is that history that has made me a loyal fan now, more than ever. I have the most respect for an individual who commits to an idea or a way of being, never compromising or wavering off course, in a world of flippancy that is a real possession and honorable existence. To stand by your beliefs and words, not for the followers, popularity or for anything other than being true to ones self, blazing your very own path. She has lived and shared her truth and I have the utmost admiration.
Before the concert I had listened to her latest album Vulnicura only a few times, and by the conclusion of the performance I began to realize that this album is my favorite. Shocking and impressive. At almost 50 years young Björk is producing her best music to date, 'Black Lake' being the prized possession. After watching the live performance of this track I could not get the feeling of the piece out of my head—almost awkward with anticipation, and devastating yet hopeful, suspended in a musical purgatory as static strings sustain chords of meditative emptiness. One becomes weary of what will come next. These suspended thoughts are juxtaposed by a constant low drone beneath militant sonic beats of emotional outburst. Even for Björk this is a new level of raw uncensored 'emotional landscape' (which is saying a lot— Dancer in The Dark ring a bell.) Obviously she has seen some recent heartbreak with the end of her 14 year partnership to artist Matthew Barney. Yet with Vulnicura, pain has been harnessed into something supremely artistic, and we see Bjork in a new unexpected light. She is humanized. Here she opens her diary and deepest thoughts, through the grieving process and beyond, not because she wants to, because she must.
‘Black Lake’ As explained in her own words:
" This is the record’s hardest song for me. It was written three months after the divorce. I flew to Japan and didn’t manage to adjust to the time difference, because… you know…
[silence].
It’s like, when you’re trying to express something and you sort of start, but then nothing comes out. You can maybe utter five words and then you’re just stuck in the pain. And the chords in-between, they sort of represent that. Those minutes of stuttering silence. Then, you maybe manage a few more words, and then you’re stuck again.
We called them “the freezes,” these moments between the verses. They’re longer than the verses, actually. It’s just that one emotion when you’re stuck. It is hard, but it’s also the only way to escape the pain, just going back and having another go, trying to make another verse." read the entire interview on grapevine
The best thing about Björk's MoMa retrospective also happens to be the video premiere of 'Black Lake'— absolutely stunning. The cinematography of Iceland's natural landscapes—comparing the human experience (and the complexities of human relationships) to the incomparable natural forces found on earth, the destruction and regeneration within nature. She begins in a cavernous lava tube, the remnants of a flowing river of magma under the earths surface. A hollow cylinder left in the wake of a volcanic eruption—like the emptiness in her heart when she is abandoned by her love, as she stammers barefoot across the coarse jagged lava rock you feel her anguish. Yet by the end she resurrects from the tube and ascends to a wide open prairie of lush Icelandic greenery, where life finds a way.
Lionsong, the second track of Vulnicura and first video to be released
Photos by The Eye Travels
