Cuttings

CD OF THE WEEK Now you better believe that Bjork's angry... Bjork Volta (One Little Indian) £11.99 Bjork’s latterday works, such as Medulla in 2004 and 2005’s film soundtrack, Drawing Restraint 9 , were impressive but rarefied. Volta is a real volte-face. On her ninth solo album, the Icelandic composer plunges back into the avant clubs on the arm of hip hop maestro Timbaland. On ‘Innocence’, you can hear someone getting beaten up at a rave: ‘ Thwap! hurgh !' On ‘Earth Intruders’, a rag-tag army of woaded tribesmen marches polyrhythmically on the First World, armed with poisoned thumb pianos. You can’t move for Timbaland’s beats these days, but Bjork doesn’t follow herds. He first came to her 10 years ago, cap in hand, for a sample of ‘Joga’. The beats aren’t even the most exciting thing about Volta . Bjork has engaged a superlative Icelandic brass section, who mimic ships in fog. Two improv drummers, the blistering Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) and the more free-form Chr...

POP CD OF THE WEEK Strange but true BJORK Vespertine (One Little Indian 046026) BJORK’S place as one of the defining acts of the Nineties isn’t in doubt - like Massive Attack, her individuality and fusion of forms has been much copied - but her last album proper, 1997’s Homogenic , made me wonder whether she wasn’t in danger of replicating her achievements for diminishing returns. It was fiercely modem, and rumbled with drum’n’bass beats, but charmless compared to 1993’s Debut and 1995’s Post . Since then, there has been her Oscar-winning role in Dancer In The Dark , but the soundtrack she supplied for Lars Von Trier’s grand folly proved as unconvincing as her millennial Icelandic cockney performance. Bjork has wisely moved on for Vespertine (‘active in the evening’), toning down the stark volcanic soundscapes of Homogenic in favour of ethereal backings laden with dreamy harps, heavenly choirs and washes of sound. It’s an intimate album, whose songs revolve around moments of tender ...

PRINCESS OF WAILS BJORK Debut (One Little Indian/All formats) LET'S ADMIT it, the Sugarcubes resided in a border town south of Obscure and just north of Wacky. They juddered and lurched like difficult children, throwing toys against walls, scratching non-existent itches. They were the Euro B-52's. But there was, above everything, that voice, an alien screech that coughed up puffin feathers, cracked, screeched and soared like nothing you'd heard before. Five years on and 'Birthday' still sounds ridiculously stark and extraordinary because of it. But, then, as you found yourself consumed by its strange beauty, in walked Einar The Irritant barking a bizarre psycho-babble rap, bringing even the most goo-goo eyed back down to earth with an ugly bump. It should, therefore, come as some relief to find Bjork left to journey alone without the ideas of a group cluttering up the landscape.  The surprise, though, is that she has fashioned an album as elaborate, u...