Crystalline cover artwork by M/M Paris
After weeks of mystery and build-up in the form of obscure teaser videos of bizarre bespoke instruments and Omar Souleyman's Syrian remixing, the first single from Bjork's new project Biophilia has been released on the iTunes store.
The track features some typically Bjorkish lyrics in which vivid scientific metaphors liken blossoming human emotional awakening to the growth of crystals deep in the darkness of the Earth, undiscovered and unfulfilled until they strive for the lights. She sings these in a series of soaring and plummeting flourishes over some deep subterranean basslines and fracturing crystalline beat patterns, before dovetailing into an exhilarating and totally unexpected glitched out drum and bass finale. I was breathless the first time I heard it. Yet another total curve ball from one of pop's few genuine innovators.
There is limited information about the track's production as of yet, but we know it was mixed by renowned Romanian pop engineer Serban Ghenea. A music video has been made by the one and only Michel Gondry and will be released shortly.
Edited to add: 16Bit have confirmed via their Facebook that they produced the track
Even more exciting is the debut of the Biophilia live installation, a seven date residency at the Manchester International Festival held at the Museum of Science and Industry. The show had it's special preview last night and reactions were ecstatic, with Twitter trenders running out of superlatives...
I am one of the lucky few people to have tickets for one of the shows, July 10th, which is apparently the only non-festival Bjork gigs in Europe this year. According to the previews there were dozens of custom made instruments, a choir of beautiful Icelandic girls in space age outfits, and stunning interactive visuals which even featured thundering Tesla coils!
Here are some photos from the rehearsals.
