Return

Volta, in poetry, is the name for a change in subject matter or "turning point" in a sonnet. In I See Who You Are, one of the songs from her new album, Volta, the Icelandic singer Björk says: “let’s celebrate now/all this flesh on our bones”. And it’s with this return to what’s primal in human nature, that we can summarize the artist’s intentions on her new album. But if you are a fan or even only an admirer, you know that Volta, the album, like in poetry, is the return to an ever running point in the björkian art.

Defining her latest album as a simple “return to rhythm and beats after a couple ‘serious’ works" [Medúlla and Drawing Restraint 9], Björk gathered with the current Pop hype, Timbaland, besides Indie drummers and percussionists, such as Chris Corsano, Brian Chippendale [from Lightning Bolt and Mindflayer] and the Congolese group Konono Nº 1, to recreate a tribal atmosphere. Timbaland’s [in a good sense] disturbing beats open the album in Earth Intruders. Marches and Konono Nº 1's likembe blends each other to the unusual duo’s electrified percussions, in an involving manifesto to the return of the human race’s pagan origins. Björk’s “necessary voodoo” is repeared to the intense ode to innocence, Innocence, in which she claims “fear is a powerful drug”.

Volta is also filled with magnificent brass arrangements. Times soft, times scarily violent [like in Vertabrae By Vertabrae], the brasses give the songs a harbor-goodbye feeling. On the amazing second track, Wanderlust, we hear ships’ whistles, while Björk, followed by Corsano’s industrial-like drums, declare her departure towards the ocean: the beginning of vertebrate life on Earth. On the chorus, she yells “peel of the layers/until you get to the core.” Can you spot the pattern?

“Wanderlust” disembogues in the wonderful Dull Flame Of Desire, which melodically also sounds like a farewell. The lyrics sound like a beautiful epic romance; maybe for that reason, she invited Antony Hagerty for a duet. The duo’s velvet voices repeat theatrically the poem, turning the song’s 7 minutes into the quickest of the album. However, it’s Chippendale’s incredible drums that elevates “Dull Flame” to the status of the album’s best song. Composed and recorded in one take [Björk asked him to go into the booth and improvise], it starts almost imperceptible among the romantic horns and grows dramatically along the song, reaching to a captivating climax.

Obviously this return to nature’s primitive state, to intuition and paganism have a strong political connotation. Since “Earth Intruders”, she refers to social unification issues, declaring herself tired of all the current religious self-importance [“We're all fucking animals, so let's just make some universal tribal beat. We're pagan. Let's just march.”]. In Hope, she uses Arabian sounds to tell the story of a pregnant suicide-bomber and right after ignites a sonorous revolution with Declare Independence [“declare independence/don’t let them do that to you/[…] raise your own flag”].

Naturally, “Volta” wasn’t well received by the critic and some fans. Many expect from such avant-garde artists like Björk, the constant reinvention of the wheel or, more specifically, Pop music paradigms. In this sixth solo work, Björk doesn’t exactly visits the world with her World Music-esque beats, but revisits her own artistic universe, returning with new points of view, to well discussed subjects in her previous albums, as for sonorous elements. This way Björk reinvents herself, above everything, delivering a collection of songs that may sound weird at first, but are deliciously captivating. Once again: necessary voodoo.