Björk Convincingly Imagines a Better World on “Utopia”

Björk making an album called Utopia almost feels redundant. Her soaring, one-of-a-kind voice, genre-hopping style, and fusion of technology, nature and humanity has always imbued her music with natural utopian qualities. I even wrote a goofy paper in college about the very subject five years ago. Her ninth album doubles down on those elements that have always been present in her music, which makes it’s her most Bjorky album yet. It’s a 72-minute bird-song-backed ode to love and beauty that tries to imagine a better world than the one we live in now (which is, admittedly, not an incredibly challenging task).

The concept of a utopia is inherently political — offering a vision of a perfect dream world is a way of pointing out what is wrong with the world we actually live in. With so much political discourse taking on an unmistakably whiny, angry, and outraged tone (which is understandable, but still exhausting), the concept of Utopia is a smart way to funnel political ideas through a message of optimism and hope, themes that naturally suit the majestic soundscapes that Björk is known for. The result is that Utopia makes some powerful points about the world we live in, but in a sneaky way. What’s missing from this utopia is just as telling as what is in it.

Most of those missing themes were on her previous album, Vulnicura, which was at times ugly, angry and difficult, as she outlined the end of a relationship in stark detail. The beginning of Utopia hits the restart button, with Björk finding love again and relating it to her deep connection to music. Opener “Arisen My Senses” describes the original awakening and making mixtapes, followed by “Blissing Me,” where she is one of “two music nerds obsessing” and “sending each other mp3s.” Some of this gets a bit gooey for my tastes, but it sets the tone for this album, which is mostly about Björk wishing the whole world felt like she did when she was falling in love.

The lyrics on Utopia end up settling in familiar territory for Björk, with a focus on loving and caring for each other along with the planet we live on. This isn’t revolutionary material by any means, but after Vulnicura, there is a comfort in having Björk back to being her usual self. And she is still capable of articulating these fairly simple themes in ways that other artists would never think of. “Body Memory” is a weird, 10-minute epic where she describes a return to her primal state. Backed by strings, a choir, heavier beats and some sort of animalistic growling noise, she vows to “refuse to accept what was meant to be” after the events of Vulnicura, making the choice of love over hate.

The other big prescription that shows up in Björk’s utopia is abolishing the patriarchy, which pops up in a few songs. On “Tabula Rasa,” she sings of “the fuck-ups of the fathers” and how “it is time for us women to rise up and not just take it lying down.” While she doesn’t go full SCUM Manifesto, her vision is clearly one that includes more femininity, especially in positions of power. “Saint” makes that case clearly by describing a matriarchal leader who cares for the sick and poor, providing an unspoken contrast with our real-world leaders while also comparing it to the healing power of music.

The sound of this album is really where the utopia concept comes to life. Björk succeeds in creating a musical paradise, with flutes, strings, choirs, birds, and her voice all combining to make a musical Candyland. Much like Vulnicura, this album isn’t really interested in traditional songs, but instead in creating a landscape to get lost in. The relative lack of hooks combined with the long run time can make Utopia feel a bit indulgent, and I think some big choruses could have made the world she created feel even more lush and beautiful. On the other hand, I feel like Björk has earned the right to indulge in her music, and I can put up with her noodling around when it sounds this lovely and complete.

It is tempting to think of this album as a pure fantasy of another world, but on the title track, Björk makes a point of singing that utopia “isn’t elsewhere. It’s here.” Her genuine belief that the world can reach her ideas on this album gives Utopia a feeling of optimism and hope that is refreshing in the current political climate. I would normally chuckle cynically at that sort of pie-in-the-sky thinking, but Björk is one of the only artists who can really pull it off in her music. After all, this is an artist who has made a career out of making the impossible a reality.

Desert Liminal’s “Static Thick” is a Low-Key Gem

In the sea of anonymous releases on Bandcamp, the dream is always to find a legitimately great band that you never would have heard of otherwise. It rarely happens, because there is such a saturation of music writing and critics/bloggers are eager to jump on anything that might appeal to more than five people, but sometimes a band like Desert Liminal slips through the cracks. Their recent release, Static Thick, is among my favorite albums (cassettes?) of 2017, even though it hasn’t reached many listeners.

But that’s enough reveling in obscurity. I listened to a lot of music this year, and Static Thick stood out because it has such a distinct vibe, a lot of which comes from Sarah Jane Quillin’s vocals. She has a husky voice (think Fiona Apple and Cat Power range) and sings with a bit of a drawl that adds to the disorienting, blurry nature of her songs, which explore gray areas sonically and thematically. She plays keys with various effects while Rob Logan handles drums, and the sound is about as minimalist and lo-fi as you would expect from a duo with a self-released Bandcamp record. Sometimes these bands I find on Bandcamp can sound like they’re missing something, or are still working out the kinks, but I wouldn’t change a thing about Desert Liminal’s sound, which is full and rich despite the minimal set-up.

I’m always curious to see how bands describe their sound, especially if it resists easy categorization like this one, and Desert Liminal’s are particularly entertaining: “dreamed up sike rok for high-functioning depressives” and “30 yr old woman falls in love with distortion pedals.” Both strike me as fairly accurate. The pedals and Quillin’s vocals do give the music a hazy, dreamy vibe, and the music is naturally downbeat, almost to the point of being narcotic. This fits with Quillin’s lyrics, which are gloomy and ambiguous like great poetry. There are clear themes of loss and grief, like on “Sun Limina,” but a lot of it is left open for interpretation.

The band I kept thinking of while listening to Desert Limina was another Chicago duo I was obsessed with recently: Algebra Suicide, which had a similar duo approach and a focus on dark poetry backed by minimalist music. That band was a little more lyrically driven than Desert Liminal, and had talking instead of singing, but they both create moody and powerful songs with very simple parts. And also like that band, part of why I like Static Thick is that it’s a welcome respite from overproduced music that sounds too eager to please as many listeners as possible. This is smart, challenging music that packs surprising potency in its low-key presentation.

Widowspeak Use Nostalgia to Their Advantage on “Expect the Best”

It’s easy to overlook a band like Widowspeak, who have been around for a few years while making music that is all within a very specific lane of hazy country/shoegaze/grunge (they call themselves “cowboy grunge”). None of that changes on their newest album, Expect the Best, but it still represents a subtle progression for the band and is their most confident and self-assured release yet. It’s one of those breakthroughs that is unlikely to be widely recognized as one, similar to how I felt about Beach House’s Thank Your Lucky Stars album back in 2015.

Widowspeak’s calling card has always been singer Molly Hamilton, who has had one of the best voices in music since their self-titled debut in 2011. She only really sings one way, but it’s perfect for this dreamy style of music, and her voice inherently captures the feelings of nostalgia and longing that fit a band that (for better or worse) has a very 90s aesthetic. While mostly sounding the same, Hamilton makes some subtle shifts on this album that help make Expect the Best feel different and better than Widowspeak’s previous efforts. Her voice is more a part of the music than it has been before, and it’s aided by her lyrics, which are the most direct and relatable she has written.

The gorgeous opener, “The Dream,” sets the tone for the rest of the album, with Hamilton waiting in line, thinking about leaving town and going west (likely mirroring real-life for the band, who moved from New York to Tacoma back to New York). “Isn’t that the dream?” she wonders in the chorus, and the rest of Expect the Best asks similar questions about the choices we make and the inertia we sometimes have to overcome to make them. “When I Tried” is the most direct song in this regard, as Hamilton confronts feelings of malaise in what might be the most straight-forward rock song the band has recorded. Her lyric “why am I still like this” speaks to any self-loathing slacker.

Hamilton repeats lyrics a lot on Expect the Best, which is another clever way of portraying inertia in the music. The most striking example is on the album closer, “Fly on the Wall,” where she repeats the phrase “it was nothing” for minutes until Robert Earl Thomas’ guitar builds and drowns her out. The song is about a go-nowhere relationship, and the repetition gets across the idea of doing the same thing over and over while hoping the situation will change. On “When I Tried,” the repetition of the phrase “you can try all the time” at the end feels more like a pep talk to herself, but it’s unclear if it will be effective.

A lot of bands use nostalgia in a cynical way by trying to transfer your love of older music onto themselves without bringing anything new to the table. I’m sure Widowspeak have been accused of that also, but I think this band uses nostalgia in a purposeful way that actually adds to the richness of their music. The retro, dreamy sound automatically has the feeling of looking back and wondering what could have been, which plays into Hamilton’s lyrics about encountering forks on the road in life and not being sure if you chose the right one. So even if Expect the Best sounds familiar, the depth and quality of these songs makes it feel new.