illusionofjoy | OTR: Björk

Björk's latest album, Volta wins an award from me for worst packaging of the year, if not ever. It unfortunately continues in a trend started on Medúlla where the track list is damn near impossible to read - now in technicolour horror, rather than glossy black text printed in a flat black background, but that isn't my biggest qualm with the package. My biggest objection to the packaging is the fact that it is a digi-pak (I hate these so-called "environmentally conscious" affronts to proper media storage) that has been modified so that the case is opened as if two double-doors are being swung open simultaneously. This alone would be annoying enough if it weren't for the fact that there is a sticker, which makes up the official album art, pasted over the divide in the "double doors." As such, to access the CD, one must either cut the sticker down the middle, or carefully peel one side of the sticker off of the surface of the digi-pak. The official Volta website recommends the latter method. Still, this is maddening for those of us who like to keep our CDs and their packaging in good condition even when we DJ! As such, I've ripped this album, like all of them, to my computer and intend to burn a copy for mobile use, regardless of whether or not I ever get around to doing the same with my other CDs.

My rant about the packaging aside, Volta is yet another brilliant album from the Icelandic songstress. She has re-embraced using musical instruments and taken a cinematic scope with the album. It's a shame she isn't doing more music for movies - these songs are epic.

"Earth Intruders" opens the set, sounding tribal and ominous, like a dark, distant cousin to Kate Bush's "The Dreaming." The end of that song is less than a minute of varying foghorn tones, segueing perfectly into the next track, "Wanderlust." Picking up where "I've Seen It All" (from Selmasongs) left off, is the expansive and thoroughly beautiful ballad "The Dull Flame of Desire." Antony Hegarty takes on the duetting duties with Björk on this song that were Thom York's on the other.

Track 4, "Innocence," is a punch to the gut - both metaphorically and literally as one of the sampled percussive noises is a man being punched in the gut (whether anybody was actually beaten up in the making of the song is for the peanut gallery to decide). In any case, it is a travesty that this song is not being played at clubs as often - if not moreso - than "Army Of Me."

I can't remember precisely, but I believe I purchased this album being even hearing a single track off of it. Not soon after, I had "Earth Intruders" on constant rotation on my customised internet radio station by virtue of giving the track four stars (the single edit of the song cuts the sound effects heard at the end on the LP version).

One thing I've noticed when doing the "Off The Rack" series (which I shall attempt to move into higher rotation now that I live in an apartment where the landlord doesn't seem intent on making my life miserable) is that newer albums don't seem to have as much of a story attached to them as the older ones do. And when I saw newer, that doesn't necessarily mean, in the case of Volta, released last year or recently, but it can just as easily refer to a CD that I recently acquired, regardless the original year of release. I suspect this is merely a symptom of hindsight being 20/20 - the world somehow being easier to piece together from a distance.

For the time-being, this entry concludes my "analysis" of Björk. Expect a new artist with the next OTR entry.