Björk
Drawing Restraint 9

THE REVIEW

I know, I know... I've already reviewed this album, but the problem is that upon rereading my old writing, I found it stupid, almost inconclusive and useless.

Because it doesn't help at all in understanding a cryptic album, full of nuances and sounds, like this "Drawing Restraint 9", because a couple of listens and a few lines of judgment are not enough to understand it fully. Yes, because it's too easy to just say "this album is fantastic" or "this album is unlistenable", simply focusing on the harsh sounds it presents.

Because, truly, this "Drawing Restraint 9", despite the abundant criticisms it has received, has managed to transport me to mysterious places, with only the support of sound. It might also be thanks to the beautiful images from the eponymous film by Matthew Barney, the husband of the Icelandic singer, but this soundtrack is much more than just a simple record. It is a treasure chest of secrets that must be discovered fully before being appreciated for its intensity.

And just the first sharp notes of the opener "Gratitude" are enough to realize it. Will Oldham's voice comes in piercing, like that of a wounded nightingale searching for a mate. The melody tears apart on the marvelous interpretation of a never-before-so eclectic and brilliant Zeena Parkins. A children's choir crashes onto the horizon, like the eastern sun. And while the meeting between light and darkness unites until they fancy each other, creating a watercolor of pure emotion, "Pearl" arrives.

In this piece, Tagaq's performance, an Inuit singer (?), is indispensable, from whom Bjork immediately grasped great respect. The vocalizations, the growls of the performer are for once the result of what the song wanted to explain: the breath of pearl hunters, the shudder of their voices, their sobs when they reach the apnea of an infinite ocean. Sometimes aggressive guttural sounds are caressed by the beautiful sounds emanating from the sho, a disused Japanese musical instrument, magnificently played by a superb Mayumi Miyata. The atmosphere is morbid, aquatic, all encapsulated in those enigmatic and undefined sounds. A genuine musical amphibian.

"Ambergris March" removes the passionate atmosphere of the previous track with a joyful march of glockenspiel, beats by Mark Bell, and harpsichord. Sometimes the specter of the more experimental and daring Frank Zappa seems to hide behind the chords.

Finally, Bjork's voice takes center stage in the indefinable vortex of a "Bath" suspended between heaven and earth: an ancestral and superhuman interpretation that unfolds over passive and almost funereal piano movements courtesy of Akira Rabelais. Miss Gudmunsdottir's voice starts in an almost subdued tone, then opens like a bud towards new horizons that materialize in magnificent hypnotic peaks and vocalizations.

"Hunter Vessel" is a clamor of winds chasing each other, illuminating an undefinable tension that seems perfect for a chase: a cat chasing a mouse. Truly beautiful.

The incredible Sho returns to be heard in the beautiful "Shimenawa": Zeena Parkins, imperceptible in the background, sends calls to the moon with her miraculous, barely touched harp. Myami in the foreground reaches a deep spiritual contact with herself. There is much depth in a dark and apocalyptically calm piece, which is revisited by the brass band shortly thereafter in "Vessel Shimenawa".

"Storm" is the masterpiece of the album: indefinable electronic outbursts, devastating sound waves, thunderstorms, sound storms confront Bjork's restless voice, which handles the scene well in one of her most daring and experimental pieces ever: vocal improvisations, truly incredible voice textures.

You couldn't miss the Japanese tradition that dominates in the eponymous film and which is the protagonist in the criticized reinterpretation in Noh theater style of "Holographic Entrypoint", a performance in which boredom often rears its head, but which was necessary as a keystone and turning point in a really special audio/video piece. Matthew writes the text and has it translated into Japanese, then has it interpreted by a sometimes eerie, sometimes innocent Shiro Nimura. Sudden percussive beats (wooden sticks?) break in from the background.

"She cuts his figure/He tears her field"

...words of violence and poetic intensity, leading to the climax of a loving and subdued metamorphosis, like the transformation into whales, ready to escape into the horizon.

A transformation that happens slowly in "Cetacea", where Bjork returns in another surprising vocal performance, which unfolds over the celestial sound of Jonas Sen and the harp of the indispensable Zeena.

"In every part/the whole part that you see/In the pattern/the fluid blood/takes shape/[...]/Nature conspires to aid you"

And nature finally completes itself in the absolution of a splendid "Antarctic Return", which despite the title, is a point of no return. Where two cetacean souls launch themselves toward the ocean (sound?).

Either you love it or you hate it.

I love it.