Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir (ˈpjœr̥kˈkvʏðmʏnstoʊhtɪr) is a musician, Chanteuse, compositrice and Icelandic actress . She was born on November 21st, 1965 with Reykjavík.

It is difficult to insert it in a precise category. Electro-pop, pop undergrounds, pop intelligent, are as many qualifiers which can be to him allotted. Its Musique, of its own consent, is deeply anchored in the pop, but Björk knew to push back the limits of them.

Biography

Childhood

Björk grows in Iceland at the sides of his/her mother, in a community Hippie. As of the five years age, it is registered in Barnamúsíkskóli Reykjavíkur, a music school where it learns the Piano and the Flûte and discovers large traditional type-setters like Stockhausen, Mahler or Debussy.

First Albums

Björk records its first album at the 11 years age, in 1977. The album, simply entitled Björk , is drawn with some 5000 specimens, and becomes a great gold success and disc in Iceland. The adolescence of Björk is marked by its membership of a great number of local groups. One will retain mainly Tappi Tíkarrass, only group of his very youths to have left a trace discographic: the album Miranda .

KUKL

In 1983, Björk creates with some friends the group Punk KUKL, the first whose songs will cross the Icelandic borders. Although success is very limited and confined with the the United Kingdom, it is a first step there towards an international career.

The Sugarcubes

In 1987, the members of KUKL scuttle the group and found The Sugarcubes , which will quickly become the Icelandic group most famous in the world (at the time). Having produced three albums (without counting an album of remixes and an anthology), The Sugarcubes is an incredible success (even if this success is centered rather quickly on the personality of its singer, Björk) and leaves in round in the whole world. In parallel, Björk starts to live its first experiments of external collaboration, recording two songs for 808 State, a group of British House. It also leaves Gling-Gló , an album of Jazz made up mainly of recoveries in Icelandic of standards of the kind.

Beginning

1992 see the separation of the group, always in every success. In 1993, Björk leaves to settle in London to record there its first album solo, Debut . She works in collaboration with Nelle Hooper, producer of Massive Attack. From their collaboration, is born the title Human Behavior , the first international success in solo of Björk. The album is received, as well by criticism as by the public. Björk obtains prices as of this first album, like the Brit Awards of the best news female international artist. Debut contains several titles which she had written during her adolescence. After the publication of the album, Björk starts a new world tour, thus launching a rate/rhythm of work that it forever abandoned so far: an album, a round.

The success of this first album enables him to be devoted immediately to its favorite practice: collaboration. At the side of David Arnold to write Play Dead for the film The Young Americans in 1993, or with Tricky for two titles of Nearly God , at the sides of Plaid for the song Lilith , of the album Not For Trees or writing Bedtimes Stories in 1994 for Madonna.

Post and Telegram

From there, the albums are followed and do not resemble. Björk turned over in studio since 1994 to compose its second album, in collaboration with Nelle Hooper, Tricky , Graham Massey (of the group 808 state) and the electronic music producer, Howie B. the album contains titles speaking about personal things and love, and, at the same time, of the aggressive titles, which express anger. Just like Beginning , " Post" is a patchwork of new music and texts written a long time before in its career.

The disc was ready for June 1995, and met a considerable success. The resumption of title It' S Oh So Quiet , having met it also a great success, took part much in booster rocket the sales of the album. Then, in June 1997, appeared an album of remixes titles of Post , Telegram , containing a new title carried out in collaboration with Evelyn Glennie : My Spine .

Homogenic , Dancer in the Dark and Selmasongs

Escaping attack, when the London police force intercepts a parcel bomb with the acid which was intended to him, it decides to leave London to settle in Spain where it partially records Homogenic , which is born in 1997.

The image returned by this album is very different from that of the precedents, which constitutes a turning in its career. If Debut showed a weak and timid young girl, if Post showed an eccentric teenager, Homogenic watch a mature woman, maturity evoked by the uprightness of the posture taken by Björk for the cover of the album; but, in this image, there remains something of inhuman, the topic of hybridization persists. This radical change evoked by the cover, is found in all the album. Homogenic is then regarded as the most experimental album of the singer.

One finds the sentimental duality there, between love and anger, which existed already in Post . Here this duality wants to be also evocative landscapes of the Iceland , between poetic snow-covered landscapes and chaotic volcanic landscapes. What feels for example in the song Joga , made up of a soft melody played violins, to which are added the happy heavy ones and violent ones. Björk says that for Homogenic , it kept only the three essential noises, the three noises which exist since mists of time - strongest: breathing, the heart which beats and the nerves which quiver.

With this album, Björk will turn also much of its best clips, whose Bachelorette , realized by Michel Gondry , and also the clip of All is Full off Coils , carried out by Chris Cunningham . With All Is Full Of Coils , it will be the first time that individual will be sold accompanied by a DVD.

2000 is one year particular for Björk. Dancer in the Dark , the film of Lars von Trier, leaves on the screens. It incarnates the main character there and the music composes some, which one can find in the mini-album Selmasongs . The actress as well as film are rewarded with the Cannes festival. One of the songs of film is also nominated with the Oscars.

Vespertine

It is in 2001 that the album Vespertine leaves, album in which Björk creates a universe intimist and introvert makes happy light and fugacious. Accompanied by a chamber orchestra and a chorus, a very soft song approaches personal topics, in particular that of the vulnerability. For this album, Björk collaborated with the experimental group Matmos, the Danish DJ Thomas Knak and the harpist Zeena Parkins. For the words, the singer takes various sources of inspiration, like the American poet E.E. Cummings in the song Sun In My Mouth . The album constitutes a new change in its career, because it is very different from the others. This album is much more homogeneous, in fact more the songs alone count, but the unit, which creates a cold atmosphere, evocative, once again, of Iceland. It is after the experiment of Dancer in the Dark , that the singer known as to have very badly supported, that it carries out a return in Iceland, a return at the origins, which is one of the topics of the album. For its promotion, it gives up its old collaborations, as with Michel Gondry, and starts some of all news, in particular with the graphic designers of M/M, or the photographers Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinhood Matadin. The media image that it had created for itself thus continues its maturation started with Homogenic, but maintaining much darker.

For the round of the album, Björk will occur in several theaters and operas of North America and Europe, accompanied by Matmos, Zeena Parkins and of a Inuit Chorus which it had met before the round, during a voyage to Greenland.

Three individual is extracted from the album: Hidden Places , Pagan Poetry and Cocoon . The first clip, produced by Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinhood Matadin, will be diffused much on the music channels. However, the following clip, Pagan Poetry , carried out by Nick Night, will be discussed much more, because Björk is with half naked there, in a dress which lets appear its centres, and which is bent to him with same the body; in the same clip, one sees also deformed images of sex acts. The clip will thus be diffused little, and when it is it, certain passages will be cut. The same applies to the following clip, Cocoon , carried out by Eiko Ishioka. In this clip, one sees this time the naked singer, the body entirely dyed in white; red wires leave its centres and are surrounded around it, for finally forming a cocoon. This clip, also, will be diffused little.

The last title of the album, Unison contains samples chorus of the Saint-Paul cathedral singing Viri Galilaei of Patrick Gowers, performance going back to 1994. Gowers started legal proceedings to make appear the name of its part in the appropriations of the album, but without result until now.

The same year, Björk leaves a book, made up of photographs, drawings and of some texts, leaving the place to several of his/her artistic collaborators, in particular the realizers of its clips.

Greatest Hits , Live Box and Family Tree

In 2002 leaves the box Family Tree proposing a selection many titles remained new (like Mother Heroïc ) or the titles selected among the albums left before the beginning its career solo (like a version of Birthday of the Sugarcube , sung in Icelandic, which gives Ammaeli or Fulgar a title that she had sung with KULK ). In parallel with this box, Greatest Hits was published which is a retrospective of individual left on the albums Debut , Post , Homogenic and Vespertine (no title of the Selmasongs is reproduced on the album), to which is added the new title It' S In Our Hands . These pieces were chosen by the fans themselves, by the means of a vote organized on Internet site of the singer. Greatest Hits will also leave in version DVD, under the title of Greatest Hits, Volumen 1993-2003 . It will be this time about a DVD gathering the whole of its videotex (and more only preferred titles of the fans). On this DVD the clip produced by Lynn Fox for Nature Is Ancient is reproduced, as well as the clip of Spike Jonze for It' S In Our Hands , where it appears pregnant. Lastly, in 2003, leaves another box called Live Box , containing a selection in the best concerts of each round, for each album, and accompanied by a DVD containing of the vidéos. Thereafter, each one as of these albums will be sold separately. This box, with Family Tree , Greatest Hits CD/DVD , thus fits in a series of 10 previous years retrospection of its career solo. Björk settles in New York in company of his/her new companion, the plastics technician Matthew Barney and gives rise to its second child, Isadora.

Medúlla

In 2004 Björk records Medúlla , an album entirely devoted to the human voice, for which it is surrounded by several singers.

This decision to center all the reflection of the album on the human voice constitutes a rupture in the career of a singer who until there was always accompanied by small and large formations, of the byte to the symphony orchestra. The singer acknowledged during various interviews to expect a refusal of the public in reaction to this radical change. On the contrary, its album was sold finally much.

The majority of the sounds of the album are create by human voices (although sometimes handled and deformed). One finds there the voices of Tania Tagaq Gillis, of the human happy-box Rahzel, of Dokaka, the rocker Mike Patton, Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine. Once more, it adapted texts of the poet E.E. Cummings, for the song Sonnest/Unrealities XI .

In August 2004, the singer is invited to take part in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games of Athens, where she interprets Oceania , major song of Medúlla. She wore for this concert a 900 meters evening gown recovering all the stage and evoking the waves in her movements.

Four clips of extracts the Medúlla album were produced. The clip of Oceania , realized by Lynn Fox, took again the images diffused on giant screen at the time of the Olympic Games. The title Who Is It was remixé with a chorus of bells. Spike Jonze produced the clip of Triumph off has Heart . An extract of Tetralogia realized by Gabríela Fridriksdóttir was re-used for the clip of Where is the Line .

Apart from some performances, no round was organized for Medúlla. Björk declared that was to continue the writing of the following album immediately. In June 2004 she declared in an interview for the magazine Rolling Stone : “With each album that I made, at the time when I finished it, I still was very inspired, and I thought of being able to still carry out an album in five minutes; then, I wanted right knowledge if it were only one imagination or if it were true”.

Army off Me Remixes and Covers

It is after the disaster of the tsunami, which has occurred in Southeast Asia at the end of 2004, which the project Army began off Mix . The purpose of this project was to off recruit by contest of the musicians for remixer the title Army Me (1995), to market a selection of the 20 then better remixes, in order to collect funds to help the UNICEF. Put on the market in at the beginning of 2006, the album collected 250  000  £. In the continuity of this project, Björk carried out in February 2006, a voyage to Banda Aceh, to realize of the work carried out by the UNICEF, near the children affected by the tsunami.

Drawing Restraint

In July/August 2005, Drawing Restraint 9 leaves, original soundtrack that Björk composed for film of the same name. In this film, she plays one of the main roles, at the side of her husband, who in is also the realizer, Matthew Barney. Drawing Restraint 9 is a film which commemorates the 60e birthday of the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The topic of film being Japan, it uses Japanese traditional instruments there. One can consider that this opus constitutes a new turning in its career, since here the influence of the Japanese music shows through, but also of coppers. These two elements, which until there were used only in a fugacious way in its compositions, will take an important place in the following album, Volta . In Drawing Restraint 9 , is finally included the song which she had sung of many times into live, without him to have given of another title that Nameless , and named Storm in the album.

Live 8

Björk took part in the " Live 8" , it occurred in Japan, accompanied by Matmos , a Japanese byte and Zeena Parkins , to play 8 titles, of which " All is Full off Love". C Ace Infinity, Good Charlotte and Mc Fly played same concert.

(____surrounded)

In 2006, leaves a new named box (____surrounded). This box is a republication of the entirety of the albums of its career solo, but each album is republished in Dolby DIGITAL and SDR 96/24 5.1 surround sound. The vidéos correspondent with each album also appear in the box. The title " I You" miss; , completely was even re-recorded for the occasion.

During the same time Björk is nominated for a Brit Awards in the " category; Better artist solo féminine". It receives also the prestigious " Awards" inspiration; of Q (magazine) .

November 17th, 2006, the first group has world success of the singer, the Sugarcubes , is reformed for a one evening concert, with Reykjavik . All the profits in the concert are transferred with the label " Smekkleysa". According to the dires of Björk in the press after this concert, it chose not to benefit from the piled up profits, with an aim of helping the Icelandic music scene to emerge. No marketing in the concert is considered.

Volta

In 2006, its collaborations with Antony and Toumani Diabaté are recorded between the Iceland and the Jamaica.

Its last album, Volta , left in May 2007. It contains 10 pieces, of which Earth Intruders , first individual of the album. For this album, it receives the assistance of Timbaland to the percussions and musical arrangements, of the singer Antony Hegarty for the pieces The Dull Flame off Desired and My Juvenile , as well as Sjon. The clip of Innocence , its second individual, will be selected among ten clips created by fans or the unknown ones, put on line on its official site. It joins again with Michel Gondry, who will produce the clip of its third individual, Declare Independence .

Volta is especially tinted of copper S (horn, Tuba, Trompette, Trombone…) and of percussions.

Principal aspects of its music

The first thing which strikes by listening to Björk, in addition to its powerful voice, it is this very strange way to stress the Syllabes, characteristic which seems to come directly from the Icelandic medieval musical tradition, famous “the rímur”, exclusively male choral societies.

But it is also necessary to take account of the reggae influences, roots, dub and rocksteady, which shows through in its melody lines. The principle which Björk retains is indeed the juxtaposition of references of strongly distant origins. For example, in Big time sensuality , and more precisely the refrain:

It takes courage, to enjoy the hardcore and gentle Big time sensuality

the melody line of the voice on the passage " to enjoy" caractéristiquement is caractéristiquement inspired by the lines of Peter Tosh or Bob Marley.

Let us note finally that the first years of Björk are made within punk groups, that then it passes by London and England where the scene ragga, reggae and dub is very active.

But the main feature of its musical activity is its taste pronounced for external collaborations. Björk likes to invite type-setters and producers coming from the most various tendencies on its albums (except for Debut and, to a lesser extent, of Homogenic , which want to be deeply inspired by its Icelandic roots). This collaboration continues besides beyond the albums: for almost each one of its songs, Björk engages a heteroclite horde remixeurs to reinterpret them. This philosophy of the Remixage, with thousand miles of traditional “the boom boom” foreseeable of the remixes for discotheques, finds its culminating point in Telegram , disc entirely dedicated to this musical form.

In addition to its own songs, Björk also takes part in the albums of his/her colleagues and friends, such Tricky, Leila, Hector Zazou, has Tribe Called Quest, Evelyn Glennie, or Plaid.

Lastly, Björk regards the video Clip as a prolongation with whole share of its work and implies itself there fully. Frequently collaborating with Michel Gondry (realizer of the clips of Human Behavior, Jóga, Bachelorette…), she also works with Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Chris Cunningham or Spike Jonze.

Björk and art

Björk continues its artistic research, apart from the music.

It begins its career with the cinema in 1986 in the main role from the film The Juniper Tree . Then, it makes a turning by television in the telefilm Glerbrot of Matthias Johannesen where it incarnates a rebellious teenager.

After an anecdotic participation in 1994 in Ready-made clothes of Robert Altman , it marks the spirits in the main role of Dancer in the Dark , realized by Lars von Trier , film which will be worth to him the price of female role to the Cannes festival in 2000 and a nomination with the Oscars for the song I' ve seen it all .

In Photography, Björk poses for the photographers more in vogue, such as Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

Lastly, its taste for the mode of avant-garde is worth sometimes the mockeries to him of the commentators, but makes him meet a crowd of designers among whom Alexander McQueen, which will sign the small pocket of Homogenic.

For its videos clip, it calls upon more or less famous realizers, like Sophie Muller, Stephan Sednaoui, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham or Jean-Baptiste Mondino. She calls also upon more astonishing people, in the sense that they do not come from the world of the video clip (some had never carried out least front film besides): the M/M (graphic designers/artists), Alexander McQueen, Nick Knight, Eiko Ishioka (large Japanese graphic designer), Lynn Fox (collective graphic designers), John Kricfaluzi (the Tex Avery trash of Spumco), Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin (artists).

Discography and clips

See also: Discography of Björk, Videotex of Björk

Catalog of films

Actress

Type-setter

(NB: this paragraph indexes the films for which Björk wrote whole or part of the original soundtrack. It does not include the many films which use preexistent songs as it is the case in Leon)

See too

Random links:Ramonville-Saint-Agne | Vahl-lès-Faulquemont | Darbres | Richard Schallert | Jerry Dammers | Madison_(recyclage)