Last year, Björk released her ‘Biophilia’ album, one of her most critically and commercially exalted albums ever. It appealed to those obsessed with the technical, exploring sounds and techniques often overlooked, while retaining as close to a pop sensibility as the Swedish chanteuse is ever going get (‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ not withstanding).
Tagged Andrew Thomas Huang, Björk, MOCA, New York, Times Square Arts, TSAC
If you’ve been listening to your radio with any sort of attention you’ll have heard that the Rubiks-cube-wrapped-in-a-Chinese-finger-trap that is Björk will be releasing a new album soon.
The whole album was composed on an iPad and is being heralded in the most hateful way as “an app album”. I know it doesn’t sound promising but remember a good portion of Jason Forrest’s last album was composed using his Star6 app and that was chuffing awesome.
Gone are the days when music composed on anything but a sophisticated PC or studio equipment sounded like a broken Gameboy. Today the playing field’s been levelled slightly: It’ll still cost a small fortune to buy an iPad but the apps themselves are usually available for £20 or so.
It’s an exciting time for music, but one that could also saturate music, with everyone now able to equip themselves with a professional studio sound. The album features a range of 10 different apps for the iPad, with each track relating to a different track on the album, each controlled a “mother” app, designed by Scott Snibbe.
As Snibbe says “Björk will be premiering the music, video and, er, apps of Biophilia at the Manchester International Festival from June 40. Icelandic organ maker Björgvin Tómasson tells The Guardian that he was commissioned by Björk to build a MIDI-controlled organ and an organ-based gamelan for the occasion.”
Björk has revealed to Icelandic newspaper Fréttablaðið that she plans to record a new album. Very little besides that nugget of information is known so far due to the singer’s superstition, stating that “I go into the studio with a plan to go do what I have in mind, and then the idea is half dead”.
Fair enough, I suppose. It does mean this article is rendered fairly boring though. Sorry about that.
