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Björk Gumundsdóttir, an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, and record producer known simply as Björk, has released her new album "Fossora."
Fossora is the singer-tenth songwriter's studio album. One Little Independent Records released the album in 2022. The album's lead single, "Atopos," was released.
The ungrammatical feminine version of the Latin word for "digger" is fossora. The songs "Sorrowful Soil" and "Ancestress" were inspired in part by the death of Björk's mother, Hildur Rna Hauksdóttir, in 2018.
The songs on the album were written during and after the COVID-19 lockdowns, during which Björk returned to her home country for the first time since she was 16 years old. American singer Serpentwithfeet, Björk's two children Sindri and sadóra, Indonesian dance duo Gabber Modus Operandi, and a bass clarinet sextet all contribute to the album.
She is known for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, and she has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on electronic, pop, experimental, trip hop, classical, and avant-garde music over her four-decade career.
Björk, who was born and raised in Reykjavik, began her musical career at the age of 11 and rose to international prominence as the lead singer of the alternative rock band the Sugarcubes by the age of 21. Following the dissolution of the band in 1992, Björk pursued a solo career, rising to prominence with albums such as Debut (1993), Post (1995), and Homogenic (1997), while collaborating with a variety of artists and experimenting with a variety of multimedia projects.
Fossora's music by Björk — Vespertine (2001), Medlla (2004), Volta (2007), Biophilia (2011), Vulnicura (2015), Utopia (2017), and Fossora (2018) are among Björk's other albums (2022).
Several of Björk's albums have charted in the top 20 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. She had sold between 20 and 40 million records worldwide as of 2015. Thirty-one of her singles have reached the top 40 on pop charts around the world, with 22 of them reaching the top 40 in the United Kingdom, including the top-10 singles "It's Oh So Quiet," "Army of Me," and "Hyperballad," as well as the top-20 singles "Play Dead," "Big Time Sensuality," and "Violently Happy."
Björk has received the Order of the Falcon, five BRIT Awards, and 15 Grammy nominations. Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most important people in 2015. According to Rolling Stone, she is the 60th best vocalist and the 81st greatest composer.
Björk appeared in Lars von Trier's 2000 film Dancer in the Dark, for which she received the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I've Seen It All."
Biophilia was billed as an interactive digital album that included an education program. In Iceland, Björk has also been a champion for environmental problems. In 2015, the New York Museum of Modern Art hosted a retrospective exhibition of Björk's work.
Björk has established a varied and avant-garde musical style that encompasses elements of electronic, dance, alternative dance, trip hop, experimental, glitch, jazz, alternative rock, instrumental, and contemporary classical music during the course of her three-decade solo career.
Björk's work has subsequently been subjected to critical study and investigation, since she continually resists musical category classification. Although she frequently refers to herself as a pop artist, she is regarded as a "restlessly exploratory creative powerhouse." According to Taylor Ho Bynum of The New Yorker, "no contemporary artist crosses the boundary [between music experimentalist and pop superstar] as elegantly as Björk."
Björk's debut album, Debut, which included electronic, house, jazz, and trip hop elements, is regarded as one of the first to integrate electronic music into mainstream pop. Her art has been described as "often exploring the link between nature and technology."
Joshua Ostroff argued that "there is no better descriptor for what Björk produces than artpop" when characterizing her broad blending of art and popular music. The NME also described her work as having a "consistently progressive pop agenda."
Björk's work is unusually collaborative, as she has collaborated with a variety of producers, photographers, fashion designers, and music video directors. She believes that her male collaborators have received more credit than she has, which she attributes to her gender as an artist.
While Björk stated that she was influenced by "Everything," she has named Stockhausen, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, and Mark Bell as some of the people who have had the most influence on her. Abida Parveen, Chaka Khan, Joni Mitchell, and Kate Bush are among the "confessional singer-songwriters" Björk admires, with the latter having had a significant effect on her career.
Mitchell also inspired Bjork to write her own songs, claiming that Mitchell "created her own [female musical universe]," which she found "very liberating." "A lot of Björk's early influences were books (George Bataille's Story of the Eye, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita) and films (Tampopo, Star Wars, The Tin Drum) that were available internationally," according to Pulse. […] But bring up Iceland, and you'll get to the core of the matter, the root of her vivacious attitude on life."
Björk has a soprano voice with a range of E3 to D6. Her singing voice has been described as "elastic" and "somersaulting," with praise also given to her scatting ability, unique vocal stylings, and delivery.
Bernadette McNulty of The Daily Telegraph wrote of her live performance at the 2011 Manchester International Festival, "the 45-year-old still uses electronic dance beats with a full-blooded raver's passion, and the elemental timbre of her voice has grown more powerful with age."
It was revealed in late 2012 that Björk had undergone surgery for a polyp on her vocal cords. After years of following a strict diet and using vocal exercises to prevent vocal injury, she "stayed quiet for three weeks and then started singing and definitely feel like my cords are as good as pre-nodule." However, in a review for Biophilia, Kitty Empire of The Guardian stated that pre-surgery Björk's voice was "spectacular and swooping," particularly on the song "Thunderbolt."
Similarly, Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine adds that her voice has been "preserved quite well," but that it has become too hoarse and shouty, adding that "it's only where her most dramatic vocal pyrotechnics are concerned that there's any question of physical ability." Björk was named one of NPR's "50 Great Voices," while MTV ranked her eighth on their list of the "22 Greatest Voices in Music."
Rolling Stone named Björk 60th as one of the 100 best singers of all time and 81st as one of the 100 greatest songwriters of all time, praising her voice as distinctive, fresh, and incredibly adaptable, fitting and being inspired by a wide range of influences and genres.