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Bjork
Selmasongs is an extended e.p. (in other words, a little bit shorter than your standard 70-minute cd) containing seven songs, all inspired by a movie in which Bjork played the starring role (Selma). The movie was called "Dancer in the Dark", and it was reported to be a painful and difficult experience for her, despite rave reviews and accolades. The experience of acting may have been a nightmare, but Bjork found use for it by allowing it to push her to a new level of emotional creativity. Throughout, Bjork connotes the playful, but portrays the dramatic.
Bjork apparently has access to a bottomless pit of creative ideas. Her vistas appear to be boundless, using virtually everything to aid her vision – synchronized factory noises, onomatopoeia, trains, orchestras – who else could claim Catherine Deneuve and Thom Yorke as guest vocalists on the same album? Bjork is contemplative, but she remains somebody who makes lemonade out of lemons. I haven’t seen the movie…yet…so it’s still difficult for me to understand the lyrical significance of a song titled "107 Steps". While the movie will clarify this further, I’m sure, I’m interested in Selmasongs solely as a listening experience. Its atmospherics are as visual as any projected image, so you can almost see each song as presentations of an image. Purportedly, Bjork’s character was blind, so it’s significant that this music is so visual in its presentation. The song "Scatterheart" is a focal point - lush, gorgeous, expressive – along with the dreamily optimistic "In the Musicals." The orchestration is remarkable throughout, too. It provides brilliant colors for the odd melodies of the album’s opening and closing theme ("Overture", "New World"). Based on this soundtrack, I can’t wait to see the movie.
Grade: 
 
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