RELEASED 26.9.2011
iophilia is the musical project and forthcoming seventh full-length studio album from Icelandic singer Björk.[5][6] The album is expected to be released on September 27, 2011, four years after her last original studio album Volta (2007).[7] The album is "partly recorded" on an iPad and, as well as a standard CD release,[8] will also be released in the form of a series of apps.[9] Biophilia will be the world's "first app album" in collaboration with Apple.[10] Björk has described the project as a multimedia collection "encompassing music, apps, internet, installations, and live shows".[11] Material from the album has debuted during a concert series to be held this summer at the Manchester International Festival.[5]
Björk has previously revealed that "Biophilia" has been partly composed on an iPad;[13] she has said that because she does not play conventional instruments like the piano or the guitar, this way of composing appeal[14] "Crystalline", the first single released, is a mostly electronic song, featuring a continuous "gameleste" base and electronic beats and rhythm. After the bridge, the song features a gameleste solo, and consequently ends with an uproarious breakcore section which uses the Amen break. New musical instruments were specially developed for the album, and specially for the shows at the Manchester International Festival that took place in mid-2011 to introduce the album. The Tesla coil was used as a musical instrument on the song "Thunderbolt". A "gameleste", a mixture between a gamelan and a celesta which was programmed in order to be played remotely by an iPad, was also used in several songs. A group of pendulums were put together, creating patterns with their moves, transmitting the movements of the Earth to the sound of a harp. For the music, Björk related the phenomenon the song describes to a musical structure or resource. For example; the song "Moon" has different musical cycles that repeat throughout the song;[15] the song "Thunderbolt" contains arpeggios, inspired by the time between when lightning is seen and thunder is heard;[16] and in "Solstice", the counterpoint makes reference to the movement of planets and the Earth rotation, and the pendulums used on the song make tribute to the Foucault pendulum.[17] The lyrics also present metaphores to those phenomena. "Dark Matter" features heavy gibberish since the dark matter phenomena are directly "unexplainable".[18] "Virus" describes "fatal relationships" such as the relationship between a virus and a cell[19] as Björk explained "It’s like I have this new neighbour that I have to sort of learn to live with"; "Solstice" presents the relation between the gravity effect on celestial bodies and on human beings[17] and in "Hollow", Björk took inspiration in her "ancestors and DNA, that the grounds open below you and you can feel your mother and her mother, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother 30,000 years back. So suddenly you’re this kinda tunnel, or trunk of DNA… All these ghosts come up so it ended up begin a halloween song and quite gothic in a way… It’s like being part of this everlasting necklace when you’re just a bead on a chain and you sort of want to belong and be a part of it and it’s just like a miracle." Björk also tried to break the typical 4/4 time signature. For example, "Solstice" features 7/4 and 6/4 times bars;[17] "Hollow", 17/8 times bars and "Mutual Core", 5/4 times bars.
1. "Moon" (Lunar cycles, sequences) Björk, Damian Taylor 5:40 2. "Thunderbolt" (Lightning, arpeggios) Björk, Oddný Eir Ævarsdóttir 3. "Crystalline" (Structure) Björk 5:06 4. "Cosmogony" (Music of the Spheres, equilibrium) Björk, Sjón 4:51 5. "Dark Matter" (Scales) Björk, Mark Bell 6. "Hollow" (DNA, rhythm) Björk 7. "Virus" (Generative music) Björk, Sjón 5:19 8. "Sacrifice" (Man and Nature, notation) Björk 9. "Mutual Core" (Tectonic plates, chords) Björk 10. "Solstice" (Gravity, counterpoint) Björk, Sjón