IS Björk a pop-star or an avant-garde artist? This question, admittedly circulating for decades now, is brought into sharp focus by her most recent work Vulnicura. The album, which she is here at MIF to promote, is written about the demise of her relationship with visual artist Matthew Barney. Considering her recent career direction included explorations of biorhythms and plate tectonics on Biophilia, there is something a bit well, Taylor Swift, about writing an album about your break-up. Is she heading back to a more pop-based sound to match the prosaic theme?
Nothing could sound more Taylor Swiftian on paper and less so in real life
At the Castlefield Bowl, the crowd is split between dedicated Björkettes (identifiable by smears of glitter, googley eye bindis or scarab hair accessories) and the more general festival-goer pleased to have picked up a big-name ticket.
Whichever category they fit into, the members of the audience are happy and in the best sense of the words, easily pleased. People cheer at the merest wiggle of a dayglo wing-tips – for when Björk herself prances onstage she is dressed as a hi-vis butterfly, naturally. She joins a percussionist and fifteen-piece orchestra all dressed in white, while video art of insects and pulsating chests spools out behind her.
Björk in moth modeThe upbeat mood doesn’t seem quite right for an evening of odes to heartbreak. But this is break-up Björk-style. The first song up is the album-opener Stonemilker, a classically Björk layering of gorgeous silky strings over more menacing, growling electronic beats, over which the singer calls for ‘emotional respect’. Lionsong, Black Lake, Family and Notget, all from the same album, follow.
Still, it’s heavy going. So when plumes of pink and blue smoke fill the twilight sky and she launches into Hunter and Bachelorette, both from 1997's Homogenic album, the crowd roars. The songs from Vulnicura are well-received, but the oldies are still the real goodies for most here.
Another past hit, Possibly Maybe, shows that, despite the swerve into Inuit throat singing of recent years, emotional rawness has always been a part of Björk’s oeuvre. As she sings “since we broke up, I’m wearing lipstick again", thematically looping together her older work with Vulnicura, the crowd nods in recognition.
Bjork, Castlefield Bowl, MIF 2015 (credit: Marcel Ridyard)Björk doesn’t speak much, but when she does it’s all Icelandic trills, belying her many years in London and New York as she greets "Manchesterrrrr". She even had a "hoorrrrrrrrah" for her old pal Graham Massey of 808 State before launching into Army of Me (which he co-wrote). The audience love it, despite the fact the sound at Castlefield Bowl can’t quite convey the song’s growling industrial beat to full effect.
The gig officially ends with Mouth Mantra, a song about overcoming the pain of a relationship’s end and finding your voice again - nothing could sound more Taylor Swiftian on paper and less so in real life - and Mutual Core, about people coming together like those aforementioned tectonic plates.
But then Björk has a little encore surprise in the form of the classic Hyperballad, singing as the fireworks twinkle “I go through this before you wake up, so I can feel happier, to be safe up here with you.” You don’t know if she's addressing a lover or the audience – and it doesn’t seem to matter.
Björk performed in Castlefield Bowl on Sunday 5 July.
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