Vespertine
In describing her album, Björk uses the terms ‘waiting’, ‘hibernating in winter’ and ‘domestic’ in the 2003 documentary Miniscule. She explains that while her aim in
‘extroverted’ album Homogenic was to echo ‘the outdoors’ and nature, she wanted the ‘introverted’ Vespertine to evoke ‘the indoors’ and ‘the internal’. She continues that ‘on a pure sonic level, being obsessed with a laptop and working with headphones so all sounds that are quite quiet and indoors wrapped up in boxes … [were] very exciting’ and that some of the sounds on Vespertine are made from non-instrumental objects in the house. Both the album title and the sounds have nocturnal references which situate the singer and the listener in an enclosed area, as echoed by song titles ‘Hidden Place’ and ‘Cocoon’. Lyrically, celestial terms such as aurora and sun are mentioned and the combination of nocturnal references and lullaby-esque sounds suggest an individual’s retirement from socialisation into a private space.
When I started working on this album, I was very interested by the home. It's sort of a love affair to the home … I started with the working title Domestica and started collecting the rhythm noises … things about the house … pots and pans and toasters and then I would sing on my laptop … It sort of was a love affair to the home but also a love poem to the laptop … I listened to it and it sort of all the things I
wanted it to be there so maybe I didn’t have to be too literal and call it Domestica. (Insound 0:14 – 2:28)
Björk’s interest in various spaces – the outdoors, a toilet at a social event, the house and so on – is evidently one that has stayed with her throughout her occupation as a singer. The fact that her albums Homogenic and Vespertine as well as many songs can be differentiated in terms of her emphasis on various types of space suggests her music-making process is heavily intertwined with her interpretation of space. After the aforementioned quote, she continues that she wrote Vespertine in winter in her Icelandic home and refers to the increase in time spent indoors due to the country’s seasonal one-hour daylight. In these ways, Vespertine emphasises the private, internal sonic experience of a solitary character as opposed to an interactive and social butterfly. These two dichotomous spaces are assigned to equally binary corners of the human emotional spectrum: the shy, reserved state in contrast to a highly alert and outgoing temperament. Grimley’s notion that ‘landscape affects ideology which affects the compositions and their understanding’ directly applies to the process through which Björk wrote Vespertine: a contained space within a wintery and nocturnal Icelandic landscape.
Medúlla
In the documentary The Inner or Deeper Part of an Animal or Plant Structure (which is the definition of the term medúlla), Björk discusses her motive behind the acapella album. She explains that she was interested in ‘primitive elements’ and compares it to ‘an individual before entering society … [w]hen you use no tools … [o]nly what you have … [t]he voice’ (5:59 – 6:21). In Miniscule, the aforementioned documentary about her album Vespertine, she states that for her ‘the human voice has always stood for nature and freedom and something
that’s not disciplined or not academic’. It is clear that Björk wanted to emphasise the natural aspect of humanity as opposed to its socially-contextualised counterpart and in the process synonymises nature with humanity. Canadian Tanya Tagaq, one of the singers on Medúlla, explains that ‘Inuit throat singing comes from [her] culture and it’s a game with two women bouncing their voices back and forth and it’s … emulating the land or animals … or whatever is around’. She continues that she is a painter and likes ‘expressing [her]self’ which ‘turned into [throat singing]’ (8:58 – 9:35). In both statements, the human subject is extrapolated from society and is expressed in terms of its natural environment. Tagaq’s occupation as a painter is a curious connection to her vocal contribution on Medúlla in that what she
expressed visually (spatial awareness of various features within a landscape) in the past, she currently produces using her voice. In other words, what she experiences physically as an artist in nature, she experiences in a comparable manner sonically. Her explanation is similar to Björk’s comment that due to the amount of time she spent in nature, the Icelandic
landscape shaped her singing style which ‘form[ed] itself’ and was ‘definitely not influenced by other singers’ (Inside Björk 2:59 – 3:59). In the aforementioned statements, two forms of space exist: that of the human subject in its natural environment and that of the socially- situated individual. The former concerns the relationship between nature and humanity while the latter echoes the relationship humans have with each other.
In terms of lyrics, Björk explains that she was ‘very conscious of [her] voice and of all the other voices’ (The Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure 22:52 – 22:56) due to which she ‘[gave] the lyrics no thought’ and ‘just let them happen by themselves’ (23:02 – 23:08). She continues that it is because ‘at 17 years old when [she] was in [the band] Kukl [she] hadn’t even started to use words’ and that similar to when she was 17, she wanted to revisit ‘the primal energy of singing’ (23:31 – 24:01). Björk explains that she prefers to have both lyrics and a ‘space’ in which she ‘can do whatever [she] want[s]’ and sing ‘mostly
gibberish’ (bjork.fr). One song that captures the spontaneity and organic aspect of the human voice is ‘Oxygen’ (1997). In engineer and producer Greg Malcangi’s words:
Just a few hours after meeting for the first time, Evelyn and Bjork wanted to quickly lay down an idea while it was still fresh in their minds. A session tape was made within twenty minutes. At a later date, Bjork returned to Heritage studio to record a release version, but the magic of that practice take could never quite be recreated. Despite a few creaks and rattles from the marimba and the occasional ‘pop’ from Bjork’s mic, both Evelyn and Bjork were in full agreement that the session tape should be used as the release version. (bjork.fr)
By prioritising organically-induced noises over calculated speech, the line between nature (i.e. animals) and humans is blurred and in the case of the album Medúlla, the team included technology in the process. For instance, in The Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure, Björk’s sound engineer for Medúlla explains that ‘[e]very single sound, regardless of the process, has its origin in the human voice’ and his colleague states that although they ‘manipulated the voices using technology … it’s more about the feeling and the emotions’. On the subject of closing the gap between an animal in nature and a socially-contexualised human, Björk explains that ‘the fact that [she] recently had a child influenced the record in a way that it became more physical’ (28:16 – 28:25) and that ‘during the following two years [after giving birth she] was only thinking about muscles, blood and bones’ (28:42 – 28:47). For instance, within the Medúlla album, ‘Triumph of a Heart’ reflects the physicality of humanity both sonically and lyrically and the voice of the Japanese beatboxer is reminiscent of animal noises while maintaining structure and an almost mechanical rhythm. In the
opening stanza, Björk’s singing ‘the nerves are sending shimmering signals’ is accompanied by a low-pitched beatboxing voice. In itself, the clause contains an alliteration and the s- and ing/ign sounds imitate the fluidity of the signals moving in her body. In the second stanza, both the s- and th-sounds are present in the sentence ‘the stubborn trunks of these legs of mine serve as pathways for my favourite fuel’ and the same alliteration along with an –ng sound in ‘smooth, soft, red, velvety lungs are pushing a network of oxygen joyfully through a nose, through a mouth’ (my emphases). Alliteration is present in the song ‘Who Is It’ (2004) in the form of the sentence ‘his embrace a fortress carries me and places a skeleton of trust’. In ‘Mouth’s Cradle’ (2004), the th-sound is a recurring one: ‘there is yet another one that follows me wherever’, ‘this tooth is warmth-like and these teeth are a ladder up to his mouth’, an added w-sound in ‘these teeth are a ladder that I walk that you can walk too if you want … if you want up to the mouth, the mouth’s cradle, up to the mouth’s cradle’, combined with the s-sound ‘the simplicity of the ghost-like beast the purity of what it wants and where it goes’ and the h-sound heard in ‘he always has a hope for me’. On a similar note, ‘Ancestors’ (2004) is characterised with an excessive breathiness that is reminiscent of the human respiratory system. After the initial inhalations and exhalations, the breathing quickens in pace and suggests panic or uneasiness, followed by a temporary slowness in pace and another build-up in intensity and rhythm. A wide range of human emotions are expressed sonically and highlight the physical changes the human body experiences under various emotional states. In addition, the human singing voice transitions into and from a canine pitch. In these ways, Medúlla compresses the distance between nature (and wildlife) and humanity.
Although the term can be applied to describe Björk’s musical career in general, her choice to name her 2011 album Biophilia clearly shows her conscious interest in shrinking the distance between nature and humanity. Her creative pursuits in light of this album is shared with the public in the 2013 documentary When Björk Met Attenborough. In addition to bringing nature on stage in live performances, she wants her creative process and output to centre around nature as well. In the documentary, Attenborough explains the quartz shown is a ‘representation of the shape of the silicon dioxide molecule’. He continues that ‘the basis of mathematics lies at the heart of crystals’ and comments that many of Björk’s songs share this characteristic because they are ‘about the spheres... the universe... the fundamental things like mathematics’ (18:26 – 18:43). Concerning its relevance to music, he continues that there can be two, three or four beats in a bar and that there is a ‘mathematical basis’ the same way there is in a crystal (18:51 – 18:58). He also highlights the connection between a mathematician’s comment on ‘the beauty of an equation’ with Björk’s decision to title one of her songs crystalline ‘because it is about the mathematics, the fundamental mathematics which is the foundation of so much in the natural world and so much which is sublime’ before explaining that symmetry can be appreciated both visually and sonically (20:43 – 21:22).
Attenborough’s comment that symmetry can be both seen and heard can be applied to literary symmetry as well. For instance, symmetry can be expressed in the forms of syllable count (in poetry), repetition, rhyme and so on. Inevitably, these germinate conceptual symmetry within a reader’s mind’s eye.
Underneath our feet crystals grow like plants Listen how they grow
I'm blinded by the lights Listen how they grow
In the core of the earth Listen how they glow
Crystalline Internal Nebula Crystalline
Rocks growing slow-mo Crystalline
I conquer claustrophobia Crystalline
And demand the light
We mimic the openness of the ones we love Dovetail our generosity
Equalize the flow with our hearts We chisel quartz to reach love
Crystalline Internal Nebula Crystalline
Rocks growing slow-mo Crystalline
I conquer claustrophobia Crystalline
Octagon, polygon Pipes up an organ Sonic branches Murmuring drone
Crystallizing galaxies spread out like my fingers
Crystalline
Listen how they grow Internal Nebula Crystalline
Listen how they glow Rocks growing slow-mo Crystalline
Listen how they grow I conquer claustrophobia Crystalline
Listen how they glow And demand the light
It's the sparkle you become when you conquer anxiety
It can be observed in the lyrics that the term crystalline is repeated throughout the song. Repetition can be seen in terms of repetitions of terms, phrases and stanzas along with occasional rhymes (‘hearts’ and ‘quartz’, ‘glow’, ‘grow’ and ‘slow-mo’ and ‘nebula’ and ‘claustrophobia’). The second, fourth and sixth stanzas are identical (crystalline appears
every two sentences) and the seventh stanza is almost identical (crystalline appears every three sentences). In addition to echoing the spatial structure in her music and lyrics, she uses spatial terms such as ‘grow’, ‘claustrophobia’, ‘openness’, ‘flow’, ‘reach’, ‘octagon’ and ‘polygon’ along with ‘spread out’. Björk’s interest in contextualising music in (often Icelandic) nature brings into question the relationship between nature and music, the environment and creative expression, the visuo-physical and the auditory.
Björk explains her musical experiences as follows:
Iceland probably affected a lot how I sing because I did spend a lot of time as a kid in nature. The way I sang would just form itself. It was definitely not influenced by other singers. Just walking outside to school or maybe in blizzards. It just kind of happened … and you would walk and there would be no wind and you could be all quiet and whispery and would sneak down next to the moss and maybe sing a verse and then you would stand up and run to a hill and sing a chorus. You have to do that quite loudly because the weather was strong. (Inside Björk 2:59 – 3:39)
Dibben interprets Björk’s statement as relating to ‘the romantic nationalist aesthetic in Icelandic popular music [which] aligns nation with land’ which maintains ‘a long-held nationalist ideology in which the threat to land is positioned as a threat to nation’ (146). However, the quote can be understood as a reference to the relationship between the visual and auditory senses. For instance, Björk’s artistic output can be seen as musical ‘translations’ or, to be more precise, ‘transcreations’ of the Icelandic landscape. Here, the music-making process she describes is both cerebral and physical. Her interest in mixing senses can be seen
in her collaboration with Evan Grant whose occupation is to ‘turn sounds into images’ (When Björk Met Attenborough 21:58- 22:03). In the documentary, he sprinkles sand on an
instrument and explains that the higher the frequency, the more complex the pattern. In addition, she partners with an MIT faculty member to invent an instrument for a performance which allows the audience to ‘see and hear gravity on stage’ (29:54 – 29:57). Björk’s interest in making listening to music a multi-sensory experience is echoed in her speech. She
mentions her habit of singing in nature a decade later in the documentary and explains that for her, ‘the line blurs so easily between music and nature because that’s almost like the same thing’ (3:28 – 3:34).
Towards the end of the documentary, a neurologist elaborates on the impact music has on the human brain:
Music calls on so many brain functions and unifies them. One sees that almost every part of the brain is involved... not only the auditory areas, motor areas, visual areas, prefrontal areas, carebellum, basal ganglia. All of these different things lighting up in the brain and interacting and playing together. And music can do this more than language. (When Björk met Attenborough 30:51 – 31:19)
Similar to the connection between various brain functions as mentioned in the excerpt, it can be argued that music videos are to some extent synesthetic in that they mirror or responds to their precursory musical accompaniment. In addition to this fact, Björk stays at the forefront as an experimental artist and released a virtual reality music video for ‘Stonemilker’ in 2015. In the music video, she moves in and out of the initial frame and walks on a beach in her native country. In the process, she invites the audience to follow her using their mice. In the
article Björk: ‘I build bridges between tech and the human things we do’ Ellis-Petersen writes that Björk ‘has long embraced the possibilities presented by new technology’, that ‘Björk Digital showcases how she has used it to enhance her creative expression’ and explains that her album Vulnicura (to which ‘Stonemilker’ belongs) is ‘the first VR album’. Chapter two’s analysis that Björk views technology as an instrument through which the human experience is enhanced in ‘Headphones’ and ‘Aeroplane’ is echoed in her efforts in and after Biophilia.
Conclusion
Björk’s tendency to sonically incorporate references to nature in her musical output can be seen in albums Debut and Post which were released years prior to Homogenic.
Vespertine, Medúlla and Biophilia are characterised by sonic and spatial references to nature. Furthermore, her view that music and nature are virtually synonymous raises questions about the relationship between environmental space and music. In these ways, Björk experimentally delves into the relationship between nature and humanity as well as space through a sonic landscape. Her musical output tackles Morton’s question concerning the concept of nature and its closeness to humanity as opposed to its ‘over there’-ness. She approaches such ecological questions by visually, lyrically and sonically mixing as well as replacing nature, humanity and technology with each other as if to claim they are interchangeable.