culture mp3

Certains diront que Volta, le nouvel album de Bjork, est dans la continuation de Medulla. Pour ma part, je le vois tout différent. Je n'avais pas vraiment apprécié Medulla mais Volta force le respect! Sa collaboration avec Timbaland est très intéressante, des titres phares comme le saisissant "Innocense" montre que Bjork imprime son talent (sa voix, son style, son univers) partout où elle s'aventure musicalement, même avec un génie comme Timbaland qui pourtant a déjà un son très particulier et très reconnaissable. Ici, c'est le style Bjork qui prédomine.


Le premier single n'est pas forcément le meilleur tube de l'album, voici le clip video de ce premier single "Earth Intruders":


Voici quelques podcasts de chansons stupéfiantes d'originalité (production Bjork & Timbaland), commençons par justement le tube "Innoncense":
{podcast - play Innocence / production Bjork & Timbaland}


Et voici, toujours avec Timbaland, une autre chanson, très différente, probablement ma préférée: "Hope"
{podcast - play Hope!}


Evidemment, les critiques professionnelles sont dythirambiques:



Extrait de la review de Rolling Stone magazine:

Ten luxuriant, often dark songs ranging from Martian electronica to inimitable balladry to id-channeling reveries, with African percussion, thick brass and deeply emotional singing: That's Bjork's new album in a nutshell, and, as usual, she sounds like no one but herself. Volta is arguably Bjork's loosest and most ruminative record, and though it touches on everything she's ever done, it's not as gripping or coherent as her best stuff, notably 2001's Vespertine. But with help from well-picked collaborators, including Timbaland and Malian kora player Toumani Diabate, the gratuitously detailed new disc packs some great moments. Two Timbaland-produced cuts -- "Innocence" and the rumbling, percussion-laden opener, "Earth Intruders" -- are the closest thing to instant pleasures. But Bjork is at her best on two flights of fancy: "Hope," a gorgeous thing that ponders suicide bombers and features some of her tenderest, most agile singing ever, and the terrific "I See Who You Are," a swirl of Asian strings and swooning melodies that seems to be about sex. Overall, a pretty good argument for Bjork to keep doing whatever she pleases -- not that she ever wouldn't.

CHRISTIAN HOARD

Billed as a return to "danceable and upbeat" sounds after a string of more experimental albums, Volta is actually a flinty, abrasive record, full of anger and bewilderment. The nearest thing to pop music is Innocence, one of three Timbaland collaborations; even there the melody is harsh and clipped. Volta lacks the unity of vision and enveloping sensuality of Vespertine and Medulla, but no one else could have made this record, voracious in its synthesis of world music: avant rock drummers Chris Corsano and Brian Chippendale, kora player Toumani Diabate and an all-female Icelandic brass section are all here. Repeated listens slowly offer up heady pleasures, notably the eight-minute crescendo of The Dull Flame of Desire, one of two duets with Antony Hegarty.