Review Summary: "The soft distortion fills you up."
It's one thing to paint, but to create a painting is a whole different realm of thought. Creating a basis or non-basis for your work. Thinking up a contextual background for this painting, or zero context at all. This comes into play in music as well, most of the time, whether we'd like to admit it or not. Artists come out of certain situations, dilemmas and different social outbursts at a given point in their lifetime. Then the artists create a piece of plastic art or music that encapsulates or at least reflects upon these elements, directly or indirectly. This is a little thing called being influenced by your surroundings. Comes 1996 and Björk was facing many a turmoil and disillusion after the release of her second solo output, "Post". The letter bomb threat from an obsessed fan who then went on to commit suicide caused Björk to be emotionally distressed and drained. Of course, an artist must strive forward. The darkness fuels us to create things we might've never been able to do in a happy state of mind. Thus, "Homogenic" was born.
What a beast of a record this is. With a whopping ten tracks, this album has no sense of emotional throttle whatsoever. It kicks off with the minimal, skeletal, yet empowering "Hunter" which contains these (again) minimal, quiet, yet pummeling synthetized beats of percussion backed up by some somber and murky chorus vocals in the background. Björk comes at you with no intention of letting up. "I'm not stopping. I'm going hunting. I'm the hunter. I'll bring back the goods." And the goods she did indeed bring. "Joga" comes forth with royal upbringing and ferocity. A beautiful and mesmerizing track whose chorus feels like climaxing on the peak of Everest. It's that insane. This track has a much more cinematic touch to it, with the swinging strings that back up Björk's singing. Again, it's powerful, masterful and grandiose. A huge switch of pace that then brings us to "Unravel". My personal favorite off of this album. This track always has me imagining Björk singing inside a small, dark, ‘cluster-***’ of a room in which the walls are carpeted with these dark brown patterns. A small window is in front of Björk as an autumn sunset closes in on her, leaving her saddened and alone. "So when you come back, we'll have to make new love." The track is more subdued in its instrumentation, with a 'sad clown-esque' low bass, baritone string hanging in the background. "Bachelorette" and "All Neon Like" transition perfectly with each other. The former serving as the lonely night Björk spends falling out of love with the 'sun' that just left her behind. "I'm the branch that you break." This track features more bombastic, pop instrumentation from the strings and percussion, then ending in the slowing down of an accordion. The latter serves as that gloomy, depressing morning in which you just can't bring yourself to get out of your bed. The sun shines, bright in your face but your eyes keep staring at the stucco ceiling. Björk's pleading for the comeback of her lost lover, saying: "Not 'til you halo all around me/I'll come over." As the song progresses, you watch it reveal itself as a roller coaster. As the strings rise up, triumphantly. Metaphorically, she's defeating her saddened state of being and maturing altogether. The strings are glossed over with a dreamy coating of pink ambience and shimmering. The track feels like dipping yourself in a body of water early in the morning as the sun rises or like driving into the distance, while the sun begins to rise and your partner is fast asleep in shotgun.
The second half of this LP features more high-energy tracks like, "5 Years", "Pluto" and "Alarm Call". These serve as a drastic change of pace with less symphonic instrumentation. Tracks like "Pluto" and "5 Years" showcase a much more frantic and distraught electronic variety of instrumentals. The former has Björk practically breaking apart in her vocals, almost shouting out the words in the most wild and majestic of ways. The latter maintains a much more composed mannerism in the vocals grooming with the beats. "Alarm Call" feels like an ode to not being afraid of moving on in life and accomplishing one's self. The sampling of her vocals and the boom-bap beat create a much looser atmosphere here, making use of both live, ethnic beats of percussion and fuzzier synthetized beats. But alas, all good things must come to an end. "All is Full of Love" presents itself like a swan propelling out of water and into the air. Leaving us, the listener, behind as it fades away into the distance. The harp is used at its best in this track, detailing a soothing farewell to everything that's holding the artist backward. It's beautiful, it's emotional and it was created as a labor of love. A scented letter goodbye to an estranged soul in the universe.
Björk comes forth with what many, including myself, consider her best work yet. Containing a much wider array of experimentation in her instrumentals, while captivating our ears effortlessly with her vocal arsenal. She fell down, scraped her knee and got back up with a classic record that should be enjoyed by fans of her more electronic/trip hop stuff and by fans of her more eclectic and cinematic stuff. "The soft distortion fills you up."
