Bjork, Bola - brilliant strangeness

Auntie Ants went-a-CD-shoppin' on Saturday (and kindly brought me back a vinyl copy of Transeurope Express). She hasn't been buying for a while, but now the property deals all done she went a bit mad. U2, The Killers, Ordinary Boys, Secret Machines and a couple of others I can't remember - all ok but nothing to write home about really.

The real stand outs though were

a) Medulla - the new Bjork album - spooky, weird, acapella brilliance - I think I'm only just starting to realise just what that lady is capable of. The reviews were luke warm, but I suspect that's because your average rock journo simply doesn't have the capacity to recognise genius when he/she hears it, especially when it sounds as strange as this. This was at the second attempt though as she bought the DVD-A/DVD Video version on Friday by accident and had to go back Saturday for the CD version. Interestingly my DVD player didn't want to know about the DVD Video layer either - it went into a tailspin and hung

b) Gnayse by Bola (Yep, Bola Gnayse, follow up to their last album Bola Soup - presumably their next will be Bola Peanuts or Rola Bola BOLA Penny a Pitch ). Utterly entrancing electronica. I'd never heard of them before. Auntie put it on and I was stunned - Oh she says afterwards - I've got another of theirs (Bola Soup), rummaged in her CD stash and that went on too. WARNING - not to be listened to when stoned unless you know what you are doing or you may never come out of it :MILD:

Addendum: Inspired I had a look round for other stuff by Bola. Seems this isn't the follow up to Soup. They released Bola Mauver since and Bola Ks before . Good/bad jokes - I love em, especially when applied to what is really quite serious music.

 

I'm a massive Bjork fan - her live dvd at the Albert hall blows me away everytime I play it, but I found medula a much to take in all at once, haven't played it for a while...maybe I should dig it out again...!

 

Well it isn't exactly an easy listen and I suspect that multiple listens will bring great rewards. Certainly her most challenging stuff yet, but challenging good, not challenging bad. I admit here that I've recently taken the plunge and started listening to a lot more classical music (raiding the Oxfam shop for mint classical stuff at 99p a throw) and its had the interesting knock on that I've started listening to and enjoying a lot more avant garde modern music.

 

Medulla is a great album and does reward repeated listening.

Michael.

 

I like Medulla, but then I like anything that has Robert Wyatt on it, as a matter of policy. Can't say I've heard any of her earlier solo stuff apart from the singles, which seemed quite interesting but not interesting enough for me to bother buying the albums. What's the best of her earlier stuff?

-- Ian

 

I've never been a big Bjork fan. The yelping has always struck me as being very mannered. I've heard a couple of tracks from Medulla, though, and I must say they sounded really interesting.

 

Ian - depends what you mean by best. Other than Medulla I've only got her 2 most well known albums "Debut" and "Post" of which Debut is easily the best IMO. I also have a CD of hers called "Gling Gló" which was when she was Björk Gudmundsdóttir rather than just Björk and it's with the Gudmindar Ingólfssonar jazz trio. It's all in Icelandic and rather amusing to listen to

Of course she was also in the Sugarcubes before she went solo but I haven't to my knowledge ever heard any Sugarcubes stuff.

Michael.

 

The Sugarcubes were OK, but very much of their time I suspect. Might pick up Debut.

-- Ian

 

Ian,

£3.99 here:

http://www1.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=97;9;-1;-1&sku=488106

 

Yo Dino, how the hell are you?

Since it's only £3.99 how can I refuse.

-- Ian

 

Ok, thanks. I've yet to hug a horse in public.

Hope you are well.

cheers

 

I've never hugged a horse either, but I have occasionally shaken hands with people who have quite long faces.

You must get yourself into That London again sometime.

-- Ian

 

Ian

"Homogenic" is really worth a listen. Has got some great tracks on it.

Came out in about '97 I think so should be mid-price by now.

Paul

 

The follow-up to Bola's "Soup" is the equally beautiful and brilliant "Fyuti", which has similar artwork to their recent "Gnayse" so it would be easy to spot, but be warned that the record label Skam has a tendency of only doing short pressing runs.

 

Cheers Mr C, worth hunting for I'll warrant.

 

If you like Bjork, have you heard - Susanna and the Magical Orchestra ?
Just reminds me of some of the more laid back stuff on Debut. There was a live set on Late Junction yesterday (Monday) which you can hear at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/latejunction/

It's about half an hour into the program if you want to skip forward.