Here’s a great Björk dance track from 1993 – Big Time Sensuality.

It’s more than fifteen years old, but it still sounds great because Björk has such a unique approach to her music and vocal.

How many of today’s dance divas will be doing vital work fifteen years from now?

Björk – Big Time Sensuality

i can sense it
something important
is about to happen
it’s coming up

it takes courage to enjoy it
the hardcore and the gentle
big time sensuality

we just met
and i know i’m a bit too intimate
but something is coming up
and we’re both included

it takes courage ti enjoy ut
the hardcore and the gentle
big time sensuality

i don’t know my future after this weekend
and i don’t want to

it takes courage to enjoy it
the hardcore and the gentle
big time sensuality

via bjorkdotcom:

Big Time Sensuality

Directed by Stéphane Sednaoui.

Written by Björk/Nellee Hooper.

Published by Universal Music Publishing Ltd/Warner Chappell Music Ltd.

® 1993 One Little Indian Records Ltd.

Available in five different physical configurations, Voltaic is a loving look at the past two years of Björk’s Volta activities—her sixth studio album, which came out in 2007, and the subsequent two-year world tour.

Nonesuch Records will release it in the US. One Little Indian in the UK and Universal for the rest of the world.

Details below.

• Voltaic DVD 1 contains filmed highlights from the Volta tour, recorded in Paris and Reykjavik, with performances of songs from Volta as well as tracks from previous albums including Hunter, Joga, Army of Me, and Hyperballad.
• Voltaic DVD 2 features all of the Volta music videos, including the “Declare Independence” clip directed by celebrated Oscar winning French director Michel Gondry; the “Wanderlust” video directed by encyclopedia pictura; and the “Earth Intruders” video directed by renowned French animator Michel Ocelot.
• Voltaic CD 1 is a selection of songs from the Volta tour recorded live at the legendary Olympic Studios in London, just before Björk’s headlining show at the Glastonbury Festival in 2007. It was recorded in one afternoon, and the whole set was played live and captured in one take before being produced and mixed by Björk.
• Voltaic CD 2 features key remixes from Volta, with versions of “Earth Intruders,” “Declare Independence,” “Innocence,” “Wanderlust,” and “Dull Flame of Desire,” by the likes of Simian Mobile Disco, Matthew Herbert, Graeme Sinden, Ghostigital, and Modeselektor.

Björk’s band on the Volta tour included Mark Bell (LFO) on computers and keyboards and Damian Taylor on keyboards and programming. Drums and percussion were played by Chris Corsano (Sonic Youth, etc.); Jónas Sen played piano, harpsichord, and church organ; and Björk’s all female Icelandic 10-piece brass section rounded out the group.

This Reactable demo video sure looks pretty – but the functionality shown should be familiar to longtime Synthtopia readers. 

I have to ask the same thing I asked about using the iPhone as a Lemur – is this just eye candy?

Reactable is a collaborative electronic musical instrument with a tangible interface based on a table, and inspired by modular synthesizers of the sixties. It was developed by the Music Technology Group at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Multiple simultaneous users share total control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on the surface of a bright circular table. Manipulating these objects, representatives of the classical components of a modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sound typologies, generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer. There are only 5 reacTable, one of which was sold to Icelandic singer Bjork.

Icelandic original Björk has penned an interesting essay for the Guardian that looks at why she loves Karlheinz Stockhausen. 

Here’s an excerpt:

For my generation, Stockhausen’s published lectures had unbelievable impact. He was the most hopeful of figures: the 21st century was going to be great. The classical teachers in my school, meanwhile, kept moaning about the good old days of music and changing the masses of music pupils into slave performers, putting to sleep any creative thought or the will to make new things.

I remember sitting in his studio in Cologne, surrounded by 12 speakers, him creating a current traveling up and down, swirling around us like the force of nature that electricity is, my insides pulsating to his noise – primordial, modern and futuristic. He celebrated the sound of sound, in both his electronic music and his acoustic music. For example, my favourite piece of his, Stimmung, is vocal only, using the voice as a sound and exploring the nuances of it in a microscopic way, rid of the luggage of the opera tradition or any other vocal disciplines, styles or techniques.

This short music video for Play Dead by Bjork and David Arnold features 240 still photos joined together in two different ways to produce timelapses of the rotation of the night sky around the pole over a 7 hour period.

Shot at the Stockport Observatory, to the North of Adelaide, SA, home to the Astronomical Society of South Australia.

The new video from Björk  - Dull Flame of Desire – featuring Antony Hegarty.

Interestingly, the video was made by the 3 runners up in the Innocence video competition. Each got a third of the song to direct.

Yamaha’s Tenori-On is getting a prominent introduction with Björk’s latest tour.

The new controller/synthesizer is part of the rig of Damian Taylor, above, who uses the Tenori-On on the track Who Is It?.

“Björk felt it would be cool to feature the gear,” says Taylor, “ to make it part of the stage set rather than using abstract pre-recorded visuals and projections.”

“We thought it would be fun to try it live,” he continues. “Who Is It? has lots of spiky and intricate vocal parts on the multitrack which weren’t yet represented in the existing brass arrangement, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Tenori-on’s sample playback capabilities.”

“I grabbed a whole bunch of “doops” “boops” “Oooos” and random vocal sounds off the multitrack and loaded them in. The sonic characteristics of the sampled vocals sat perfectly around the warm, heavy brass arrangement and Björk’s lead vocal, and then just jamming with the on-board sequencer gave us musical progression and dynamics – plus a really nice bunch of imagery for our video guy, Anthony Cairns, to use on screen.”

Taylor’s Take On The Tenori-On

“Björk had a good play with it when we first tried it out and she really likes it,” says Damian. “She’s into the fact that it makes the brain work in a different way, breaks routines and habits.”

“You can definitely see the crowd reacting to these new things – when I fire up the Tenori-on, for example, they kind of go ‘wooh, what’s that?’. I wind up with a bunch of emails after each gig from people who have tracked me down online, demanding an explanation.”

“Using the Tenori-on and the other gear is really exciting and fresh for me after all those years in the studio too. I got so used to always using a computer, a mouse, some faders and knobs. Now it’s playing music with all these different interfaces, graphics, feedback, tactility – plus thousands of people responding to it.”

The latest video from Björk – Wanderlust – continues her tradition of mind-boggling videos.

“The initial impetus was I love Björk’s music and really wanted to get inside it and learn more about it,” says Travis Sullivan, who opens SFJazz’s ninth annual Spring Season with Bjorkestra tonight at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum. “Throughout history, this is what we do as jazz musicians. We take the very best music in the popular vein and make it into something of our own.”

You an preview Bjorkestra’s version of Hyperballad below.

Bjork Volta Podcast Part 1

Bjork Volta Podcast Part 2

Bjork Volta Podcast Part 3

Bjork Volta Podcast Part 4

Bjork Volta Podcast Part 5

The reacTable’s developers say it is the latest in an emerging wave of “tangible music interfaces,” but to the touring musicians who play the thing, it’s merely “cool.”

“Established instruments like the Moog, the turntable and the laptop are really powerful, but they do not provide the necessary control over the complex sound generation in the background,” said Martin Kaltenbrunner, one of the four-man team that created the reacTable.

“This is where tangible interfaces or multi-touch surfaces promise some new possibilities. We are interested in creating new electronic musical instruments which are more powerful for the musicians and allow the manipulation of the many possible parameters of synthetic sounds at any point.”

Here’s a video of Björk performing with the reacTable at The Glastonbury Festival:

Björk explains the appeal of the reacTable:

“When I first got it, I thought, ‘Why don’t I just make a funny noise on the Moog?’” said Damian Taylor, a Grammy-nominated producer who engineered Björk’s latest album, Volta, and who plays the reacTable onstage with the Icelander.

“But, as soon as you start to use it, there’s really no comparison — it’s a completely different animal. They designed it so you draw your finger across the board, but I just wound up picking stuff up and banging it on the table and playing it more like rock ‘n’ roll power chords. We had to replace the bottoms of each of the blocks because I was wearing away the patterns.”

via Wired

Björk has suggested the idea, that the video to Innocence of Volta is to be made by anyone who wants to. She has asked the Madwebcarpenters to help out in finding “you” to make the video. We said: Yes.

Innocence Video Competition

We will for convenience sake call this a competition as it will be Björk who will choose the video and maker to work with.

The timeline is that the video needs to be ready at the beginning of August, when Björk will collaborate with the winner to complete the video. The video needs though to be sent in 3 weeks prior to that so they can be viewed and chosen. The format submitted for viewing will have to be a reasonable sized Quicktime file.

Even though creative tools are provided, it is not an necessity to use them. We just love the sculpture!!!

Those interested are directed to the contest page where you can get all the necessary details, including the song lyrics and photographs.

All entries are to be submitted by early July, when the best ones will be judged for inclusion.

Tiësto, twice voted the top DJ in the world, made Olympic history as the first DJ ever to perform in an Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. Tiësto performed during the 90-minute parade, in which participating nations introduce their athletes, over 10,000 in all. Tiësto performed a live DJ-set, including tracks produced specifically for the Opening Ceremony.

The President of the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee, Mrs. Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, heralded the announcement of Tiësto’s participation, saying: “Our Ceremonies will include unique Greek artistic elements along with modern and international perspectives. While it is path-breaking, it is also natural, that a modern artist like Tiësto will contribute to the celebration we’re planning on our opening night. We welcome him to Athens.”

Tiësto, right, said, “I am honored to be to be part of the biggest sports event in the world. The fact that the Games are returning to their birthplace and to the city where they were revived makes Athens 2004 very special. The opportunity to perform my music for billions of people around the globe will be the greatest highlight of my life.”

Later in the ceremony, Icelandic electronica artist Björk performed a song she wrote for the event, Oceania. Her performance was both a spectacle and moving.

Björk wore what must be the largest dress ever created, and as she sang, the thousands of athletes pulled the hem of the dress, and waves of fabric unraveled until the dress filled the stadium, covering the heads of all the athletes.

The dress design featured an image of all the countries of the globe. The imagery matched the theme of her song, Oceania. According to Björk, “The song is written from the point of view of the ocean that surrounds all the land and watches over the humans to see how they are doing after millions of years of evolution. It sees no borders, different races or religion which has always been at the core of these games.”

Officials estimated that four billion people would be watching the opening of the 28th Olympiad of the modern era.

Though the CD is over ten years old, few artists have caught up with Bjork. She explores all types of songs, arranging each with an eclectic blend of synths and traditional instruments. The music is very wide-ranging. Human Behavior starts the album off with a twist. The percussion sounds like a combination of timpani and snare drum. Bjork adds interesting synth work, samples and electronic effects, but the most important element is her voice.

Bjork sounds like no one else. She whispers, she pants, she yodels, she uses her breathing as part of her sound, and she audibly smiles while she sings certain phrases. Her performances are incredibly full of life, emotion and intensity.

Crying is a song about longing for someone that is gone, about  being alone in a crowd. It the stuff of country music songs, but Bjork’s take is far enough out that it doesn’t just sound like she’s from another country, but maybe another planet. Bjork continues her weird, funky arranging by having the bass played on piano. Bjork plays with timing of her vocals, drawing them out, delaying them against the beat, and switching from legato to staccato singing in a blink.

Venus as a boy is an ode to a great lover:

“His wicked sense of humour
Suggests exciting sex
His fingers focus on her
Touches, he’s Venus as a boy

He believes in beauty
He’s Venus as a boy

He’s exploring
The taste of her
Arousal
So accurate
He sets off
The beauty in her
He’s Venus as a boy

He believes in beauty
He’s Venus as a boy”

Bjork’s orchestration and singing somehow make this all sound innocent, even when she’s singing about exciting sex and the taste of her arousal. In a way, her song transforms the subject matter into something innocent. Her orchestration has many other interesting elements, including Bhangra-like string orchestrations.

One of the standout tracks of the album is “There’s more to life than this.” It’s a upbeat techno-pop dance track about there being more to life than dancing to upbeat techno-pop dance tracks:

“Come on girl
Let’s sneak out of this party
It’s getting boring
There’s more to life than this

It’s still early morning
We could go down to the harbour
And jump between the boats
And see the sun come up

We could nick a boat
And sneak off to this island
I could bring my little ghetto blaster
There’s more to life than this

But then we’d have to rush back
To the town’s best baker
To get the first bread of the morning
There’s more to life than this”

Bjork surprises your ears in the middle of the song. She manipulates the ambience of the track and suddenly fades out the backing music, making it sound like she’s singing karaoke and has taken the mike down the hall and into the restroom. Then she reverses this, sounding like she’s gone back to the party to finish up her song, before sneaking out, nicking a boat and taking her ghetto blaster to an island.

After this, she shifts gears again, covering a standard, Like someone in love. She backs her voice up with just harp and some subtle string synths. It’s a traditional arrangement of a standard, but, again, her vocals make it electrifying. Her voice sounds weak and untrained, and unlike the voices you usually covering standards. Her rawness makes her powerful performance all the more affecting.

After the soft love song, Bjork strips your gears by digging into some Big Time Sensuality:

“We just met
and I know I’m a bit too intimate
but something huge is coming up
and we’re both included

It takes courage
to enjoy it the hardcore and the gentle
big time sensuality”

Big Time Sensuality is an interesting techno pop song until Bjork goes totally ballistic, like somebody cranking up the resonance knob on a TB303. Her voice goes stratospheric, and she growls, grunts, bays at the moon, and primal screams. Suddenly it’s not just interesting anymore. To quote When Harry Met Sally, “I’ll have whatever she’s having!”

Other highlights are One Day, a mellow trance song, and Violently Happy, which is sort of a dark love song.

Anyone interested in music with an edge and artists that are willing to take risks should give Bjork’s Debut a listen. It may lead to an addiction, though!