Björk’s music has always burbled up from a place between worlds, and her latest effort with producer
Timbaland is no exception. Volta, however predictable in its execution, is a wedding of the pop and avant-garde, rife with all the contradictions that would be the undoing of a lesser artist but are instantly recognizable as Björk’s hallmark. Billed as a “fun,” “full-bodied” album, Volta has a rather martial quality. Industrial apocalypse is battled with tribal primitivism as synthy static is routinely dispelled by mucky percussion, kora and Chinese pipa. Clean hornlines punctuate Björk’s seismic yet ethereal vocals, often crafting soft, self-harmonizing hollows that could be mistaken for womblike if it were not for her blunt, unsettling lyrics. “Hope” pairs images of suicide bombing with pregnancy, corrupting an ethos of innocence with topical politics. Likewise, tracks like “Innocence” and “Wanderlust” teeter between danceable and dissonant, neon and earthen, spiritual and animalistic. In “The Dull Flame of Desire,” an otherwise trite lyric
is stretched, as few but Björk can manage, into sheer poetry. The same may be said for Volta at large. While the surprises are few, a savory balance is struck.
