Bjork - Violently Harpy

 

Violently Harpy

Has anyone else scored a copy of that recent Bjork record? I don’t mean 'Bastards' , but the collection of unreleased session tracks, which got a Japanese only release at the same time. Strictly under the counter stuff, very limited and very expensive. Thankfully a good friend of mine has just returned from Tokyo and very kindly bought me back a copy.

The album, ‘Icelandic Pixie Ring of Sprite Juice’, is quite incredible; it makes Yoko Ono’s Avant-Garde warblings sound like Celine Dion, and just needs to be heard by more than a few elite Japanese business men and Wire journalists. I’m happy to share my thoughts with those of you who are contemplating the expensive punt.

The album kicks off in grand style with the tune, ‘Black Pearl Piercing Parlour’, for this Bjork sampled the grunts and groans of Five Sumo wrestlers as they had the letters of her name tattooed onto their buttocks. Over this she sings of her love of sportsmen in nappies and talc, in Mauritian.

Song two, ‘Battysea Dogs Home’, is a work of abstract genius. Bjork is accompanied by the the sea bat canine inmates of Battersea dogs home all woofing and a’ barking as she meows in a weird and slightly disturbing way. This of course sets the dogs off and they reach new highs of barking joy.

She continues to push the Avant-Garde boundaries on the album’s third track, ‘Dental Gasthaus 57’. Fifty Seven dentist drills are suspended from a Tyrolean cottage, screeching away whilst the world famous nose and throat singer, Janice Cher-Dubarry gargles the Star Spangled Banner with Listerine.

‘Syringe Balloon Rabbit Warren’ follows. An instrumental consisting of balloons being popped by big rabbits with syringes, it’s her most challenging work yet.

‘Doppelzimmer Samaritan Purse Cake’ is just Bjork’s rumbling stomach sampled through an 808 and then dropped into a charity shop letterbox. (In the background it’s possible to hear, ‘Yes Dear, that’s nice, but it’s not exactly, Des O’Connor now is it?’

‘Jumpin Jack Cow, It’s a Gas Gas Gas’ samples 25 Indian Holy cows as they break wind into a turbine engine with Bollywood’s best known Mick Jagger impersonator, ‘Talvin Sings the Blues’, scatting with a clothes peg on his nose with rampant abound.

The album closes with an amazing duet between Bjork and Burkin Fatso, the world famous opera singer and fat twat. He sings in deep gutteral tones about his love of spam fritters and she sings rhetorical questions such as, ‘Why do all Spanish people wear red cord jeans and rugby shirts?’

If anybody wants me to burn then a copy….tough, I like being an elitist snob with records no one else owns.