Björk
Volta

Three years after the unlistenable and pretentious "Medulla," Björk Guðmundsdóttir returns on May 7, 2007, with this latest work, "Volta." She retraces her steps the ice banshee, that is, into the experimental pop most congenial to her and which has brought her a certain commercial success.

This time she self-produces and engages in various collaborations, including Antony Hegarty of Antony And The Johnsons, drummer-saxophonist Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt, Malian musician Toumani Diabaté, percussionist Chris Corsano, the Chinese Min Xiao-Fen, player of the pipa (Chinese lute), Mark Bell, pioneer of house music and IDM, a fully Icelandic brass section, and a host of electronic engineers. Compared to the introspective and crepuscular "Vespertine" with its crystalline and fairytale sounds, the album seems a return to earthly passions, primordial sounds, and the "dirty" sound as the Icelandic sprite likes to define it. "Volta" is a cacophonous album, based on an almost excessive use of brass and percussion, noisy and acidic electronics, tribal rhythms, and forays into hip hop and world music.

Earth Intruders, which will be released as a single, is a track far from being straightforward and easy to listen to, going beyond mere electronic pop dance. It gives an almost claustrophobic feeling when listening. It's a thick wall of dense and screeching electronic sounds, every empty space is filled, rhythms and drums of devastating impact, a muffled and distorted voice alternated by somewhat childish and sharp trills typically Björk. Bizarre the closing with trombones and tubas creating maritime siren-like effects with various tones.

The brass is still in the foreground in the solemn Wanderlust, used against a backdrop of muted and harsh tones in conflict with each other to which the cybernetic effects of the synths perfectly adapt, and in the third track, The Dull Flame Of Desire: a wonderful duet with Antony Hegarty, a song high in romantic content, never stereotypical and banal, enriched by inspired vocal performances and a vast array of relentless tribal percussion, advancing in a crescendo for the grand finale.

Innocence is a devastating and highly acidic explosion of stomp cadences and electronic effects that seem to want to scratch and slap. The rhythmic and melodic setup, like the vocal part, makes one think of a kind of post-nuclear third-millennium Big Time Sensuality. I See Who You Are is a successful experiment of traditional Chinese music thanks to Min Xiao-Fen's pipa with warm and minimal sounds and Björk's voice optimally utilized in a melodious and silvery counterpoint.

Dramatic and insinuating is Vertebrae by Vertebrae, classically structured with sophisticated and syncopated rhythm, where the brass section shines with its own light, insistent and very dark, while in Pneumonia the occasion arises for the horns to showcase themselves and lead Björk throughout the piece, performed with great emotional intensity and made even more evocative by the rain effect.

Hope sees the effervescent performance of Toumani Diabaté on the kora, the Senegalese lute, with Björk on the clavichord in a delightful and crystalline pop-world piece. But Declare Independence looms like a disastrous explosion: it is a highly acidic techno-hardcore and electroclash track that hits hard like Björk's demented screams never so hysterically frenetic. One of the best tracks on the album.

The album closes with the short My Juvenile, ready to tone down the excessive tones of the previous sulphurous track and featuring Antony Hegarty again as a partner of the little Icelander. This interpretation by the two artists is splendid too, in a minimalist track instrumentally, but rich in refined and complex vocal balances by Björk.

Volta is presented as a well-made and idea-rich work, perhaps a bit excessive and redundant in the arrangements, but with the courage to propose something interesting and quite varied from a stylistic and sonic perspective. I consider it an itinerary through primordial sounds tied to mother earth, ancestral, with an ancient and traditional flavor. Perhaps "Volta" will not be easy listening enough to have a huge following and does not present itself as overly challenging and experimental to be indigestible; yet it remains a stimulating and creative work, which certainly redeems the Icelandic artist from the misstep of "Medulla" and brings her back to more approachable and credible dimensions.