Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 13:12:29 +0200 From: Emiel Efdee Subject: Lamb! Bjork! BJORK Earlier last evening Bjork gave me a copy of her limited digipacked 'Homogenic' cd (well, I just bought the thing in a shop...) and after a few listening sessions I can say this little Icelandic girrrl is still getting better and better. No disco, jungle and hardrock this time. Just B. Gudmundsdottir, a few Icelandic string players, some computers, Mark Bell and Howie B. I think in the next few months 50% of the tracks will appear on remixed ep's and a remixed 'Homogenic' will be the result of that (just like she did with 'Debut' and 'Post'). Great album. Get one yourself. Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 13:55:01 +0100 From: David Thorpe Subject: The Friday Review Caroline Sullivan really liked Bjork's "Homogenic". In fact liked it much more than either Debut or Post. The salatious gossip within the review mentioned that Bjork's creative rush was probably due to her breakup with Goldie: "Her lyrics are less opaque than usual, imparting an emotional kick that the last album lacked. It's possible to trace the decline of the affair with Goldie through songs like Hunter, Immature and 5 Years, and she doesn't pull punches. These are angry words that fairly dare the man to ever darken her doorstep again." and: "Even her most impassioned vocal soars and swoops feel cool and Nordically restrained. Her voice hits the stratosphere on, say, Bachelorette, but still there's a composure that says more than all of Courtney Love's let-it-all-hang-out screeches. "Ergo, a triumph. The best thing she could do now would be to stop making records while she's at the pinnacle of her career." Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 22:06:18 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: Subjective Arnold and Pixiestereolabstuff 1. The new Bjork album is FANTASTIC. I know she'll release most of it as singles and we'll all get heartily sick of having to buy yet another triple CD pack with umpteen remixes and one new song ("Joga" is out on Monday) but (as with "Post") don't let that obscure the fact that it's an amazing album. Mostly produced by Mark "LFO" Bell, and it shows - there's that polished, metallic style but with lush strings and the voice (of course). Lovely packaging if you buy the triple fold-out digipak thing, I know we are all packaging fetishists on this list. I must find "Advance" and play it very loud, soon. Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 01:18:05 -0400 From: Jeffrey Timothy Jacob Subject: Bjork: Homogenic Just wanted to second any recommendations for the new Bjork. Homogenic is a thrilling recording. It is so good it has brought me out of several months of lurkerdom to proclaim it record of the year. It seems that sterling reviews can be found everywhere but in a nutshell: breathtaking bjorkian vocal gymnastics over perpetual dialogue of strings and LFO pulsations. Echoes of Birthday era Sugarcubes and Hyperballad but much less of a traditional song structure. Wonderful stuff. Sidenotes: The Simon Raymonde solo disc is very, very nice as well. Quite quirky and unpredictable which is something the Cocteaus have lost long ago. Bella Union mail order was incredibly efficient...I don't think I had to wait for more than a week for this to arrive. Came with a nice signed postcard from Mr. Raymond himself. Finally, yes the new Sundays holds few surprises. I think Q magazine put it best in their review: Music by parents for parents. It is very competent and even soothing? but certainly nothing new is happening. Thats it. Looking forward to Portishead. ate: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:20:25 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: Bjork: Homogenic On 29 Sep 97 at 9:26, Irene McC wrote: > There's a huge bun fight going on on another list : someone wrote a > glowing review of Bjork's new album (Homogenic) on which she employs > some of the top 'underground' remixers and producers (Nellee Hooper, > Tricky, Mark Bell etc.) Actually it's all Bjork/Bell apart from one Bjork, one Bell and one Howie B, with a bit of mixing on one of the Bjork/Bell tracks by Howie B - hence the title of the album, which does sound like ten related pieces (and there's a development of the "love found/lost" theme across the ten songs, too). > and immediately people started hopping around saying she was a > 'bitch' lacking 'balls' and just coasted along on her 'gazillions > of dollars' sipping on a soda and wailing some shite vox over other > people's brilliant ideas. And so on and so forth ... I take it this isn't the Bjork/Sugarcubes list, which when I was on it (a good few years ago, left well before "Post") consisted mainly of obsessed fans (less so than the P J Harvey or Smiths list, but approaching that level) with a sprinkling of lads wanting to know if there were any posters available of that "leaning over showing her cleavage" shot from the cover of the second Sugarcubes album. > Quite an interesting debate from the point of WHO gets credited. She > has, in fact, given everybody credits on the album cover, but this > is not good enough for those in the fray, stating that *her* name > gets top billing. Just like all those Bob Dylan albums. That's not Bob playing all the instruments, you know. When I have some more money tomorrow I'll be buying the new Dylan album, it has had some excellent reviews and I honestly thought he'd never record another one. Certainly not another decent one. > All quite theoretic, since these days with sampling being so > common, everybody's pilfering everybody else's work left, right and > centre without always giving due credit (let alone royalties) to > the originators I still think the whole Scanner controversy over "Post" was an elaborate scam. Bjork makes an album allegedly stuffed with samples and then removes them all prior to release except for one tiny one, from a track by a man who shares an art-punk background with the founders of her UK label. Scanner then threatens to sue, the album is allegedly pulled from the shops (but it remains on sale) and will supposedly be reissued in modified form (so BUY THE ORIGINAL VERSION WHILE YOU CAN), then in a few weeks when it has become apparent that Bjork's difficult second album hasn't flopped she and Scanner patch up their differences with promises to work together. Aaah. > I am eagerly awaiting local release of the CD to go and check out Ms > Gudmunsdottir for myself... It's top quality. I find the whole phenomenon interesting anyway, quite apart from the excellent music. Singer with awkward indie band makes solo album full of bouncy tunes which *everybody* loves (I had an interesting trip to an exhibition with a colleague twenty years older than me who had just discovered this great album by "Bchork") and she's now progressed to recording what in effect is a techno album with strings, and she's *still* getting attention from all those (without wanting to sound too superior) fans of middlebrow, bland music. There are still a lot of dodgy rumours going around - remember how she had recorded an album's worth of songs with the Black Dog, and only three or four were released? There's now supposed to be an album's worth of collaborations with RZA of the Wu-Tang clan due for release early next year - anyone want to bet that a couple of tracks will surface as B-sides and then nothing more? And what has happened to the UK release of "Joga"? OLI had it scheduled for release the same day as "Homogenic", then it was supposed to be out on Saturday (according to a half-page NME ad a few weeks ago), and even though the triple-CD-and-video was supposed to be limited to 3000 I would have thought I'd have seen one, or seen it in one of the on-line shops. Cancelled?