Bj÷rk releases her third solo studio album Homogenic Source: Homogenic Research Team Date of issue: 17-07-1997

Homogenic, Bj÷rk's third international solo album is released on September 29th, 1997.As her first self-produced album, since the much more collaborative productions of Debut and Post, Homogenic marks a dramatic turning point in Bj÷rk's 20 year career. This is Bj÷rk's most uncompromising album, featuring some of her most ambitious vocal performances. It has a deeply cinematic quality, and an emotionally charged resonance that makes it one of her most personal musical statements to date. It is also an album of complex structures and arrangements; luscious string arrangements wrap around distorted, submerged electronic beats belying a serene and contemplative mood. It's a more mature album than Post, a confident album that sees Bj÷rk developing a style of production that is almost as distinctive and original as her vocal style.

Homogenic was recorded at a residential studio in El Madro al, Southern Spain. Mark Bell from LFO, who first worked with Bj÷rk in 1991, developed the beats and the album's sonic signature. The Icelandic String Octet's sweeping orchestrations, scored by Bj÷rk with help from Eumir Deodato, were then laid over the top. Deodato had previously worked on string arrangements for Post's, "HyperBallad", "You've Been Flirting Again" and "Isobel". Bj÷rk's vocals were recorded live, along with the Octet's and Mark Bell's near-to-live instrumentation. The album was engineered by Marcus Dravs and mixed by Mark "Spike" Stent who both also worked on Post.

An important musical influence in Bj÷rk's life since she was 14 has been Asmundur Jansson, an Icelandic radio DJ and musicologist who compiled a comprehensive history of Icelandic music for Bj÷rk's research on Homogenic. One inspiration for the title Homogenic is that on Debut and Post the songs were influenced as much by the personalities of Bj÷rk's co-producers, whereas the songs on Homogenic are all genetically similar because they are unified by Bjork's more directional production role. Also by imposing a limited palette at the beginning stages of production a code of experimentation was enforced, leading to the development of songs along an inventive and homogenous musical line.

Through the inventive album sleeve designs of Paul White at Me Co, Bj÷rk has consistently assimilated herself into the framework of her ideas. For the cover of Homogenic artwork the celebrated photographer Nick Knight and Britain's leading fashion designer Alexander McQueen collaborated to create an image of Bj÷rk . As usual with Bj÷rk, it's as ambiguous as it is revealing but when challenged as to her present state of mind she replies, "That character is definitely not me any more. I'm writing completely different songs now. I have moved on." Never one to be pinned down, Bj÷rk remains as mysterious as she is open, as inventive as she is intuitive. If Homogenic is an elliptical phase in the trajectory of Bjork's quantum-leaping career, then the question is, where was she at when it was made?

It has been a high profile and stressful year for Bj÷rk. A year in which her professional and personal lives were consumed by the media: The Bangkok incident saw Bj÷rk fighting a camera crew who invaded the privacy of her son Sindri. At the same time Bj÷rk's private relationships were being played out in the tabloids. Just before she was due to begin recording Homogenic in September, 1996 an obsessive American fan committed suicide after sending a potentially lethal letter bomb to her home address. Luckily it was intercepted by the police. After four years of intense work, since the release of Debut, these were the triggers that finally exploded Bj÷rk's accelerated, high pressure lifestyle. It resulted in a period she now fondly refers to as her "crash". "It brought me back to truth and made me real. I realised that I had to cut the crap and it settled me again." ╠╠After the ethereal escapism of Debut and the exuberance of Post, the before and after of Bj÷rk establishing herself in London, Homogenic is a return to basics; inspirationally infused by her first ten years of growing up in Iceland.

"I had been away from Iceland for over a year and when I returned for New Year I stayed on top of a mountain. I went for a walk on my own and I saw the ice was thawing in the lava fields. All I could hear was the cackle of the ice, echoing over hundreds of square miles. It was pitch black, the Northern Lights were swirling around and just below them was a layer of thick cloud. I could see the lights from all the towns of my childhood mirrored in the reflection of these clouds, with the lava fields cackling below. It was really techno..."

It may seem obvious; the imagery of the Aurora Borealis and volcanoes, Icelandic clichs even, but within all clichs there lies an element of the truth. Iceland is full of the dichotomy of nature and technology. As one of the world's most recent geological outcrops and yet its fifth richest country (per capita head); a modernist consumer society and a primordial landscape operate in dramatic tandem. It is precisely the orchestration of these contradictions; the spiritual and the materialistic dichotomy within one's self, one's relationships and one's environment, that forms the core lyrical and musical identity of Homogenic.

Bj÷rk Gudmundsdottir began her professional musical career at the age of 11, when she released her self-titled debut album. The album was mostly covers of Icelandic folk songs with one Bj÷rk original, an instrumental number "Johannes Kjaval" a tribute to the well respected Icelandic painter. From the age of six until she was 14, Bj÷rk attended a local music school, where she studied music and trained on the piano and flute.

Bj÷rk was born in Reykjavik on 21 November 1965 and brought up in a Bohemian, musical household. Her stepfather was a guitarist in a band called Pops who played mainly Hendrix and Clapton influenced music. Influenced by the late arrival of punk and new wave in the '70s and early '80s, Bj÷rk rebelled against her parents' hippy inspired lifestyle and formed a number of short-lived punk bands. Exodus at age 13 and Tappi Tikarrass at 14, and Kukl at 18, which lasted from 1984 until 1986 recording two albums for British anarchist label Crass. After three years of politically motivated, punk sincerity, Bj÷rk, Einar n and Siggi Baldurson split the band to form The Sugarcubes and have some fun.

In 1987 The Sugarcubes, with three new members, Th≡r Eldon (Bj÷rk's ex-husband and the father of their child Sindri) Magga and Bragi released their dazzling debut single "Birthday". It brought Bj÷rk's voice to the attention of the British music press and secured the band a solid fanbase. They formed their own collective in Iceland called The Bad Taste Family, through which they ran an independent label and produced art events. In 1988 they released their debut album of surreal pop, Life's Too Good, to widespread critical acclaim. Over the next four years they released three more albums. Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, which was not as well received as their debut and sold less. Their third album Stick Around For Joy, released in 1991 was, however, considered a return to form. It was also around this time that Bj÷rk began to get seriously involved in dance music, with her first vocal excursions on a dance record appearing courtesy of Graham Massey's 808 State. Two songs that feature Bj÷rk "Ooops" and "QMart" appear on EX:EL. The final Sugarcubes album It's It, was released in 1992, at a point when the band knew they were going to split. It was a remix album of their previously recorded material, mainly curated by Bjork's growing interest in the British dance scene. Despite the Sugarcubes' success, Bj÷rk felt the need to express herself in her own songs, so she finally left the band she had helped form, to pursue a solo career. In the interim period before the release of Debut, while working in various jobs in Reykjavik, Bj÷rk began to consolidate her relationship with the Trio Gudmundar Ingolfssonar recording Gling-Gl≡; a one-off album of jazz and popular standards.

Bj÷rk's first international solo album, Debut, released in July 1993, saw her rocket into mainstream public consciousness This was her breakthrough album, selling over two and a half million copies worldwide. Bj÷rk had come from left-of-centre, with an album that mixed introspective and emotionally liberating songs with the club savvy, polished production of Nellee Hooper. The singles "Human Behaviour", "Venus As A Boy", "Big Time Sensuality" and "Violently Happy" from Debut, all went on to be Top 20 hits. Bj÷rk now moved to London, getting closer to the musicians and artists she admired, exploring the evolving dance music scene and working on a series of collaborations for a follow-up album.

After the vulnerability inherent in Debut, Post was a more playful album. A dislocated communique of contrasting styles; techno doodles, relaxed eccentric beats, big band sounds and exotic, ethnic instrumentation. Through a series of production duets, Bj÷rk collaborated with Nellee Hooper, Graham Massey, Tricky and Howie B and also self-produced two of the songs. Since its release in June 1995, Post has sold over three million copies worldwide.

Telegram, an album of tracks from Post, remixed by a cross section of Bj÷rk's favourite contemporary artists was released in November 1996. The album confirmed Bj÷rk's status as a leading exponent of underground dance. Since Dom T and Underworld's mixes of "Human Behaviour" in 1992, Bj÷rk has brought new talented artists to wider attention through multi-format remixes of her singles. Telegram intuitively matches the character of the song to the personalities of the remix artists. It incorporates not only the futuristic dance rhythms of LFO, Dillinja, Outcast and Graham Massey, the hip hop flavour of Dobie and the ambient soundscapes of Mika Vainio, but also the non technologically driven, experimental percussion arrangements of Evelyn Glennie and the sweeping string arrangements.of jazz impresario Eumir Deodato. The "kooky chick" from "somewhere no one can pronounce properly", the "elfin, pixie-like chanteuse", who "screeches along to fax machines" has outlasted these lazy metaphors, and rent-a-line clichs, to create an identity and musical status that is unequivocal.

Bj÷rk may seem unusual, but that is only to be expected in an artist whose output is so consistently inventive. Bj÷rk is a consummate professional who sees her musical career as still in its developing stages. She is a magical performer who recently enchanted 16,000 people at The Tibetan Freedom concert, in Ramsey Island, New York, on June 6th, in a sneak preview of five new songs from Homogenic. With Mark Bell, raised at the rear of the stage surrounded by banks of keyboards and sequencers, the String Octet in a semicircle to one side of the stage, conducted by Eumir Deodato, and Bj÷rk out in front, the festival goers were given a taste of four new songs from Homogenic. "All Neon Like", the love song of the album, opened the set, and Bj÷rk reached out to her audience, empathising and singing, Don't get angry with yourself - I'll heal you.. "Joga" followed, with its cinematic, dramatic feel. Submerged, distorted beats underpinned the resounding line, State of emergency, it's where I want to be." "Hunter" began with a soft military beat, and built with an enthralling string serenade to Bj÷rk's confessional line, I thought I could organise freedom, how Scandinavian of me. "Isobel" and "Hyperballad" both from Post slipped neatly in between these new songs. "Pluto" from Homogenic began with a dreamy vocal, which flew into a wild orbit, over alien sci-fi synth sounds and a dirty techno beat. It's a song about the liberation of hedonism, about life and death and starting over again. A perfect way to consummate this short and powerful live set.

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⌐1997 - Raimond van Raamsdonk

Last edited: 25-07-97 21:29:08