album review: 'fossora' by björk

One problem that doesn’t often get brought up as a music critic is that not all music works for all seasons, all times, all mindsets. And you might think, ‘well, that’s obvious, art is designed to evoke specific emotions or states of mind, you can’t expect an album to fit every moment’, but as a critic who’s trying to evaluate things holistically and in context, it can make talking about certain albums or even artists kind of tough, especially around year-end list season, where you might not go back to a specific album or artist much, but when you do, it’s always worth it, every time.

I bring this up because I’ve come to realize that Björk is one of those artists for me, partially because it took me a long time to get into her work and it often doesn’t have the immediacy to be something I’ll want to hear all the time… but when that moment strikes, her unique lilting vocals, eclectic melodies, and fascinatingly raw lyrics can be so wondrous that I often find myself thinking ‘I should go back to this more’. Hell, if anything the more times I go back to revisit Post, Homogenic, Vespertine, and Vulnicura that thought becomes all the more prominent, and I don’t want her work to feel devalued just because it has its strongest resonance in specific times and places. But it’s also why I wanted to specifically make time to dig into this project, even if outside of Vulnicura a lot of Bjork’s recent output hasn’t quite clicked as strongly, especially Utopia which has moments of beauty but has never stuck the way I wanted. Given the breakup and recovery arc of her last two albums seemed to have concluded, we were uncharted territory yet again, what did Bjork give us?

Well, greatness - and make no mistake, after repeated listens I’m comfortably placing this in the upper end of Björk’s catalog - but it’s the sort of greatness that feels both like a culmination of other Björk projects but also an advancement from ones that didn’t quite work for me. It’s also thematically rich, amazingly textured, grounded but intensely alive and kinetic, and probably her easiest to revisit in both pieces and as a whole in years if not decades, and a prime candidate for being among the best projects of 2022; have to be honest, I was shocked how much I enjoyed the hell out of this album! Maybe it’s being colder on Utopia - which I did revisit before listening to this, and again, still doesn’t quite work - but so much of what she was building on that album lands so much better for me on Fossora, and that was thrilling to hear.

In fact, let’s start there, because at this point Björk albums are often best compared with her varied and wildly colourful discography, and this does feel like it’s built off of several previous ideas interwoven together. From Vespertine comes the unbelievably gorgeous strings and yearning, orchestral elements, from Homogenic comes the slight electronic embellishments especially in the lighter percussion that contribute to song structures that are just accessible enough… but it goes further. The two albums where this has received the most comparisons are Medulla and Biophilia, two projects I don’t quite like in Björk’s catalog, but this album highlights not how those experiments were bad ideas, but rather that they were building to something more, with the intricate vocal harmonies finally crystallizing into something more potent this time, and the unstable, gabber-inspired grooves building more roiling foundation. Biophilia in particular felt like a lot of potent ideas especially in anthropomorphizing nature that never fully clicked, especially in the jittery percussion lines, but both lyrically and sonically here the roots feel more grounded, with an emotional weight that shows investment and song structures that can pay off those ideas. Hell, even from Utopia I can hear a progression, especially in all of the major chord woodwind flutters, but where that album had a weird, lingering, deconstructed bitterness that could make some of the brighter moments feel flighty or even artificial, this album’s blend of emotions feel more resonant while remaining as complex.

Now that’s not saying this is an easy album to get into - starting from ‘Atopos’ the percussion is hammering and the strings melody feels offkilter and Björk’s trilling vocals are trying to cut through and provide some stability that’s not happening, but while I eventually clicked with it and appreciate how it works with the content, it doesn’t contribute to an uneasy instability that’s all over this album, which is never so much dark as it is distinctly uncomfortable. I love the horn line that runs through ‘Ovule’, but it’s a weirdly ominous note especially opposite that whirring stutter in the percussion, and ‘Victimhood’ can often feel even more discordant and jarring, with the horns and strings creating this groaning low-end as the vocals feel increasingly claustrophobic; in both cases, it works for the content, but you have to tune yourself to that wavelength and that can be tough. ‘Ancestress’ makes it even more difficult with the gongs and strings and hints of effects as the song runs over seven minutes - potent for the complicated death march that it is, which again makes sense for its content, but you can get the feeling that it loses momentum. And then there are just moments that have a brand of quirk that just won’t be to everyone’s taste: I think serpentwithfeet’s vocals are a really nice compliment for Björk on ‘Fungal City’, but she also switches up the fidelity of her own vocal leads instead of opting for a blend - all the more jarring when you realize it’s a sex song for the inner cryptid in us all! And that distortion comes back on the title track opposite the programmed, bouncing squawks with just this terrific groove - on a tactile level it makes sense, but that song’s even more chaotic where you can tell Björk is testing the audience with intentional rough edges, inspired by the gabber percussion which can lend a crashing dancefoor intensity that can be a bit slapdash. Now I wasn’t against this - half because it makes a striking amount of thematic sense, half because the low-end grooves prevent the clash of tones from feeling too jarring, half because there’s also a wealth of songs where the vocal arrangements feel strange but beautifully synergistic all the same like on ‘Sorrowful Soil’ and ‘Her Mother’s House’ and ‘Freefall’ and both of the instrumental interludes, comprised of interweaving vocal patches and electronic distortion - but it feels like the sort of thing where if you’re not familiar with how Björk has built to these moments on previous records, you might be thrown off. What ironically threw me was the inclusion of ‘Allow’ with Emilie Nicolas, and while she adds some beautiful vocal texture and the song is very pleasant with its spare beat and wispy charm, with the woodwind palette you can tell it’s a leftover from Utopia and while it fits thematically on the album, it doesn’t quite fit.

So okay, what is this album about? Well, the simple answer to this is motherhood, both from the multiple songs where Björk commemorates her own mother who passed away in 2018 - one with vocals contributed from her son - to the closing track with her daughter exploring their relationship. But I’ve said on multiple occasions that albums that lean hard on purely maternal emotions don’t always click for me - including from singer-songwriters I’d argue are some of the best in the industry, and yet that never feels like an issue for Björk and this album, so what’s different? Well, one thing you realize quite quickly is that Björk isn’t shying away from the more complex expressions of motherhood and femininity in her middle age, including a sexual appetite that feels optimistically charged but grounded and wiser for it - look at how she quantifies her own reproductive capacity on ‘Sorrowful Soil’ for a prime example, having thousands of eggs but the capacity for only a few nests - and that can be yet enough! It becomes clear that Björk’s boundless passion for life ran at odds with her mother’s sense of nihilism working as an environmental activist, where despite elements seeking to constrain her down to the pacemaker in her last years, she was going to live her own life fiercely and Björk wonders if her early death may have been one last defiant escape. But that goes deeper into a fear persisting between mothers and daughters of one subsuming the other - it’s not rational, but when compounded with a turbulent relationship and let’s not forget relationship trauma that Björk is still grappling with as of the first few songs, it’s very human. What becomes interesting is the selection of metaphors Björk pulls together here, and which really culminate on ‘Victimhood’ - too often that maternal figure is placed on a pedestal, always giving of herself, surrounded in a saintly glow… but that cannot be Bjork’s reality, and she sees that desire for perfection not only something that doesn’t work in a healthy relationship or learning to trust and love again, but also how it’s left her with a void that because of her sacrifices and claiming victimhood, claiming she is owed love, it’s never allowed her to be fulfilled even getting it. This is a very tough line for Björk to walk, because politics of victimhood and by extension envy can lead to some very ugly, very conservative places, but that’s not what Björk does - at least at this point, her framing is intensely personal and individual, something for her to keep growing she needs to move past.

But grow into… what? Well, this is where one of the main symbols of the album takes center stage: fungus! Immediately I was reminded a little of Richard Dawson and Circle’s album Henki from last year, but that was more about cycles of plant life, there’s a different texture altogether with Björk embracing the mushrooms of the world - and I have to be honest, I really like it! It’s an embrace of the organic and imperfect, where the capacity for growth and spread feels unmatched, and while it might seem like it feeds on death, it’s the breakdown of remains for new soil to grow anew, and it’s such a natural fit for Björk’s unique humour that I found it immensely charming, especially mirrored so effectively in the production where the seams are audible but not implacable; it’s not a dark album nor would it make sense to be, death and renewal are natural facts of life. And Björk’s blend of the intensely tactile with the cosmic forces that transcend our limited understanding of life and death and renewal shines through on songs like ‘Freefall’ where she just continues to barrel forward and find that love, even if her voice fading into the echoes highlights just how uncertain it can all feel. And that’s a new tension that really works on the back half of the album: she’s digging in despite imperfection and uneven ground - hence the loose Latin interpolation for the album’s title - but then we get the final song ‘Her Mother’s House’, where she wants to present a figure of strength and compassion and giving for her daughter to set off into the world, a graceful goodbye as the better job she’s done the less her children should need her… but kids always find their way home time and time again, because it’s not a purely transactional relationship, or one of absolute authorities. It’s a relationship that shifts with time, and Björk’s self-awareness about wanting to be there for her children while allowing them to flourish in their own right is such a genuine, heartfelt moment that earns the complicated emotional resonance that feels love, sadness, pride, and everything in between - instead of a death of something, it’s the growth of something new, should she be ready for it.

So in short, I can say without hyperbole that this doesn’t just feel like an emotional culmination, but also the sort of idiosyncratic growth that shows Björk finding new levels of emotional intelligence and wisdom amidst production and compositions that wend their melodies through fascinating territory and some of the most propulsive, coursing grooves her career. Thematically rich with so much entangling complexities where the music echoes the writing and then enhances its emotional focus, but also in a strange way one of her most accessible projects in its aching sincerity and tighter construction provided you can tap into her mature quirks, this is Björk’s best album since Vespertine and likely one of the best of 2022. Again, it’s a little tough to recommend because Björk’s unique delivery and this album’s eclectic balance of grooves and careening melody will not be for everyone, but if you can… this is something truly wondrous all the way down. Dig deep here and you’ll find so much treasure - check it out!