Bjork - Vulnicura

When a romantic relationship ends badly, some therapists recommend writing an angry letter to your former lover telling them exactly what you think of them. Hold nothing back, goes the professional advice, spill out all of your hurts and grievances. Tell your ex how betrayed you feel, what a rotten bastard/bitch they are, what a woeful disappointment they were in the sack (“...and no, it’s not normal and it doesn’t happen to everybody!”).
The key thing is that you’re not actually supposed to send them the letter. Instead, you’re meant to purge all of your bitterness through the act of writing it, and then hide it away or symbolically burn it.
When Bjork’s 13-year relationship with Matthew Barney, the father of her daughter, ended, the Icelandic singer didn’t write the American artist a letter, she wrote an entire album instead. As she explained in a posting on her official Facebook page: “I guess I found in my lap one year into writing it a complete heartbreak album. Kinda surprised how thoroughly I had documented this in pretty much accurate emotional chronology... like 3 songs before a break up and three after. So the anthropologist in me sneaked in and I decided to share them as such. First I was worried it would be too self-indulgent but then I felt it might make it even more universal. And hopefully the songs could be a help, a crutch to others and prove how biological this process is: The wound and the healing of the wound. Psychologically and physically. It has a stubborn clock attached to it. There is a way out.”
Following on from 2011’s well-received Biophilia, her ninth studio release Vulnicura – perhaps the made-up title suggests a cure for vulnerability? – was originally scheduled to come out in March, in conjunction with the publication of the Bjork: Archives book and a retrospective exhibition about her impressively varied career at the Museum of Modern Art. However, following the inevitable internet leak, it has just been rush-released. I can’t imagine Barney is too pleased. Hell hath no fury like an Icelandic pop star scorned...
From Blood on the Tracks and The Boatman’s Call to Here, My Dear and Achtung Baby!, break-ups have inspired some of the greatest music of all time, but these nine songs – most of them co-produced with Arca and The Haxan Cloak (passport name: Bobby Krlic) – are all too morose, sorrowful and emotionally raw to ever become classics of the tear-stained genre.
The confessional tone is set with opening track ‘Stonemilker’, the only song solely produced by her. “Moments of clarity are so rare,” she sings, sounding even more fragile than usual, “I better document this – at least the view is fierce.” So begins a string laden (lots of violins, violas and cellos) series of songs, interspersed with erratic electro beats and eerie effects, documenting the “emotional chronology” of the disintegration of her relationship with Barney. The title refers to her feeling as though she’s milking a stone for his love.
Each of these diary-like songs is labelled “before” or “after”, which is somewhat unnecessary given the TMI nature of most of the lyrics. The writing is obviously on the wall in ‘History of Touches’: “I wake you up in the night/ feeling this is our last time together.” She sees “every single touch... every single fuck... in a wondrous timelapse” (can’t wait for that video). She doesn’t appear to be handling the split very well on ‘Black Lake’: “My spirit is broken/ into the fabric of all he is woven.”
It’s all very artfully composed, but at times seems fiercely self-indulgent. It would be more forgivable if there was something here you could dance to – or even hum along with. But even the appearance of Antony Hegarty on the fractured ‘Atom Dance’ doesn’t liven things up. You also wonder what her daughter will make of all this public airing of their dirty laundry. On ‘Family’, she wails, “How will I sing us out of this sorrow?” over scratchy strings. Maybe an extended sun holiday would have been a better idea...
Bjork remains one of the most talented female artists of her generation and Vulnicura isn’t a bad album, not by a long shot. However, it’s not a collection of songs I can personally imagine ever wanting to hear over and over again. I’d imagine that poor old Matthew Barney feels much the same way. File under uneasy listening.

Key Track - 'Stonemilker'