ESSENTIALS FOR LIVING #1: Bjork: Homogenic

In many ways “Homogenic” is one of the very greatest of cds–period. Like Ella Fitzgerald or Judy Garland’s work it is, at its very best, a tower of emotion, drenched in unalterable feeling and passion. But “Homogenic” is not a cd given to hysterics, instead it conveys a longing that churns from a furnace deep within the heart.

Augustine has so wisely said that we do not know what delights us. He has never been more right.

We are surprised by our late-life yearnings and often discomfited by them. We marvel Like Janacek in old age that he might burn anew for a young love or, like Bunuel facing his eighties, be reminded that love and its attending complications are evergreen, irregardless of age. Ditto Rohmer.

“Homogenic,” Bjork’s fourth solo cd triumph stunned the world. Already waylaid by her disco/R&B/hip-hop switchups “Debut,” “Post,” and “Telegram” (a remix of “Post”), Bjork served notice that she was no longer the wild-voiced munchkin of The Sugar Cubes or the pixie-dust, cameo guest star who helped to make 808 State’s brilliant “Excel” such a mind bender.

Here in “Homogenic” Bjork finds a real voice. And what a voice! Large, smooth, expressive and drenched in yearning, this is no longer the Bjork of chipmunk land but a full-fledged titan of pop who knows her way around R & B torch production and fits quite easily into songstress mode.

Even more scary: she is the lyricist on most of her tunes and she brings a freshness to her poetry that rivals the very best songmeisters:

All the accidents that happen

follow the dot

coincidence makes sense

only with you

you don’t have to speak

I feel emotional landscapes

they puzzle me…

Then the riddle gets solved

and you push me up to

this state of emergency,…

Bjork “Joga”

Bjork sounds nothing like you think. Here, faced with the prospects offered by cold words brittle on a digital screen, her poetry appears beautifully spare and perhaps, to some, oddly skewed, angled impossibly toward an attack that, on paper at least, one cannot see the rich, emotional depth of the words.

But Bjork is the greatest pop interpreter now before the public, an artist who knows how to work a line as effectively as Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, or Ella Fitzgerald.

She rides cadence, expertly finding just the right point to soar into the endless expanse of heart rending sound. That such a voice could surge out of this tiny masterpiece of a woman continues to astound. But then, again, Judy Garland was also tiny–and equally titanic.

I understand that, on the surface, Bjork appears to be this strange woman, affected by “art,” a show person clad in weird costumes. She’s the elfin with the Icelandic distance and squeaky voice.

That was a Bjork.

And if all you know is that Bjork, prepare to have your life changed for nothing prepares you for this Bjork, the Bjork of “Homogenic,” “Vespertine,” and “Medulla.”

Here is a torch singer who knows how to effortlessly draw the last bit of sweetness from a line. Her voice, now creamy (Yes, this Bjork!), now husky with mystery, gives her total command over a whole range of feeling.

She’s like that great explorer Rosemary Clooney expertly excavating even the tiniest sand of meaning out of a lyric like Rosemary did with the Duke’s “Sophisticated Lady.”

Bjork is that rare thing in art: an utter surprise. There are some in pop and rock who are her equal. There are none who are her better.

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