THESE VOCALS MELTED ME // björk - sorrowful soil // Composer Reaction & Analysis

Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on björk : sorrowful soil (official video)

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00:00 Intro
0:36 Reaction
04:17 Analysis: A Breezy Ending
05:23 Analysis: Space and Layers
08:27 Analysis: Amazing Counterpoint
13:27 Analysis: Never Too Cluttered
19:27 Analysis: Lyrical Dive
26:30 Outro

#reaction #bjork #choral #artpop

[Sagitarria]

As an environmental sciencist who works with soil, I gotta say: Bjork is extremely literate about landscape issues, soil ecology, fungi. This album is scientifically phenomenal

[borisrohland]

I understand that people from the chorus said it was the most difficult song they had to sing and it required a lot of rehearsing

[jcfarnham]

The "white noise" for me is volcanic sounds - wind on top of a mountain, distant rumblings. She's used it as a theme a few times in the past, since its definite part of the geology of Iceland and life there.

I believe this entire album is very much based on understanding your roots and what that can teach you about your future and death and life. From mother to daughter and so on. Not only do you have the obvious use of the field recording, but iirc there's a healthy singing tradition in Iceland too, which is probably another reason she chose to do this as a choral piece!

I love it when she does songs like this. She's got a particular knack for writing choir stuff that's just magical!

EDIT: Just got to the part about power chords! Funnily enough I think I heard somewhere that Icelandic music is based on a lot of 5ths, so good call on that!

[massimilianopraticelli]

To answer your question, I think the synthesizer is not out of place in here, Björk makes use of technology in very clever ways and it blends beautifully with the voices here. Sometimes it's even hard to describe what she does, but one needs to have a very high emotional intellect in order to create something like this, to say the least. She doesn't seek perfection because that's not what she is interested in, it's more about eloquence. Perfection can get boring. I believe one of the greatest aspects of her is the way she is able to translate life experiences into music, to reenact feelings. She's a genius of our time.

[majorgruber]

I've been a fan of hers since The Sugarcubes first hit the scene. I was lucky enough to see them twice in concert as well. My buddies came away totally crushed out on the keyboard player, but I became such a fan of Bjork that I bought her earlier album by Kukl as well.

Loved your comments about the sub-bass.

[SophiaPangloss]

I believe the 'white noise' at the end is recording of the volcano which erupted in Iceland during the album's recording, as seen in the video.

[neonparadis]

The choir was recorded at a church and has NINE harmony lines insted of the usual four, like you said it could sound way more cluttered.
She actually uses very heavy pitch manipulation in this song for the harmonies. (you can hear it at around 1:50 when she says "In a woman's lifetime")

[JarkkoToivonen]

Ah, Björk . Love her voice, unique and beautiful.

[guyrapu]

You should listen to “Submarine”, from Medúlla. A gem.

[Sagitarria]

so the album is about the biology of decomposition- largely fungal. the sorofull soil is in this case a woman who has had a few children and is going to be soil. the sounds are the wind and lava of the land she will be returned to

[vwho]

Please react to ancestress, it's from the same album as this song, it's about her mother's death.
I think the current Bjork has evolved a lot lyrically and musically compared to the old and iconic bjork.

[izzy_ondomink]

Most people i don't think know this but her name is pronounced Byurk

[soleywolfgangsdottir]

i have to be very honest now. i love björk for many many years now, she is an absolut icon and put our whole country on the world map of music. BUT. i cannot stand all those masks and costumes any longer. she hides behind them and even from the first row on concerts ( i have been to many of her concerts so far) you cannot see her face. where has the joy of playing in front of huge crowds gone? compare it to the even if you meet her downtown reykjavík she is hidden behind masks.
the way she uses to sing has become somehow monotonous compared to her work from debut until biophilia. have you listened to the anchor song live with the european choir yet? i think the magic has gotten a bit lost with her last two records, everything sounds too complicated, too much of everything and i would wish for her next record something stripped, reduced, back to the core of her ingenuity.
but i really appreciate your thoughts on this track, it opens the horizon of my own thoughts about it.

great songs with choir: eivor, gullspunnin live at kvf.
eivor made an very interesting album together with the danish national big band and the danish national vocal ensemble, called At the heart of a selkie". i really love this album. the combination of big band and vocal ensemble creates pure magic and tells the story of a nordic folk legend about the selkie woman. selkies are women in seal skins, once a year they come to the shore at night, shed their skins and dance as naked humans until the sun rises again. a fisherman fell in love with one of her, hid her skin in a chest and forced her to stay with him. finally she finds the strenghts to leave him behind and returns into the sea. its a one hour acoustic journey into this legend