Björk

[triangles19 2,455]

Hey sisters I got a little experience I want to share with you. It's connected to Björk, but not about her work.

I went to WeLoveGreen festival to see her, and I'm not used to concerts. I wanted to see her as close as possible so I did what I had to be just in front of the scene. It was a perfect show, very magical. But the sound was SO loud, the bass was extrem and I didn't had any earplug to protect me (even if I knew I had to), then I had an audio-trauma diagnostic for 1 week and a half, my right ear was blocked. I was scared as s**t that it would never come back to normal. I'm very lucky to live in France and having almost 100% free healthcare, but it can costs a lot.
That naive behaviour of not protecting ourselves at concerts is really stupid 'cause the damages can be very heavy. It's a very happy ending for me, I'm lucky. Really.

SO SISTERS, don't be as stupid as I was, and ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR OH SO PRECIOUS EARS AT SHOWS PLEASE.

(and fk that kind of extrem sounds are not even enjoyable)

 

[jvcx 3,644]

Hey sisters I got a little experience I want to share with you. It's connected to Björk, but not about her work.

I went to WeLoveGreen festival to see her, and I'm not used to concerts. I wanted to see her as close as possible so I did what I had to be just in front of the scene. It was a perfect show, very magical. But the sound was SO loud, the bass was extrem and I didn't had any earplug to protect me (even if I knew I had to), then I had an audio-trauma diagnostic for 1 week and a half, my right ear was blocked. I was scared as s**t that it would never come back to normal. I'm very lucky to live in France and having almost 100% free healthcare, but it can costs a lot.

That naive behaviour of not protecting ourselves at concerts is really stupid 'cause the damages can be very heavy. It's a very happy ending for me, I'm lucky. Really.

 

SO SISTERS, don't be as stupid as I was, and ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR OH SO PRECIOUS EARS AT SHOWS PLEASE.

(and fk that kind of extrem sounds are not even enjoyable)

 

 

Yeah I've seen people saying that the bass is extremely loud especially during Arisen my senses. I'm so happy that you ended up being okay, and yes I wish some people would realize that even one concert can fuck up your hearing real bad. I sort of learned this the hard way myself as I used to go to arena concerts and club gigs without earplugs - and I always left them with my ears ringing and I didn't take it seriously as the ringing had usually stopped the next morning when I woke up; until one morning when my left ear was still ringing. I observed the situation for a few days until I went to a doctor and I left with papers about tinnitus since there's basically no way to treat it. I couldn't fall asleep unless I had a little bit of noise around me so I used to have some CD playing in the background.

Almost four years have passed since then and the tinnitus in my left year is somewhat more "distant" than in the beginning or I'm just so used to it I don't really notice it in my everyday life anymore. Either way I have these annoying days every now and then when the ringing/buzzing is louder than usually so yeah my left ear is definitely damaged. I don't remember nor know what it feels like to be in complete silence anymore. I do my best to avoid loud noises (this even includes my boyfriend and our friend playing PS4 because they make a lot of those) and I definitely have my precious earplugs with me at concerts and when I (these days very rarely) go to clubs. I try to be as careful as possible yet still enjoy myself because I don't want my left ear to go deaf eventually which is a scary probability.

I don't know if people think they look embarrassing with earplugs or something but I definitely recommend them. Not only do they protect your hearing very effectively but there's also earplugs designed especially for concerts and clubs etc. that filter the noise, bass etc. and eventually you can actually hear a lot better than those not wearing any earplugs. In Finland you can find earplugs made of foam pretty much everywhere but they're almost always disposable and very annoying to put in your ears, at least for me they popped out almost immediately. So I got myself silicone ones online that I can put perfectly into my ears in a second and they're also skin color so they aren't very noticeable - for like 20€. Definitely one of the best purchases I've made and like I said I don't even go to any bars without them. When people complain about the DJ playing music too loud, I can hear it clearly and enjoy it.

 

Moving to a way lighter subject however, I haven't mentioned this here before but Björk had a Finnish, London-based designer Klaus Haapaniemi design her furniture inspired by Icelandic fantasy landscapes and lava fields close to her remote summer house in Iceland. The furniture were custom-built here in Finland and a year ago they were available for the public to see for a short period of time at a gallery in Helsinki. Being fans of her, my boyfriend and I had plans of seeing it - and sit on the sofa before Björk lol - since we live half and hour from Helsinki but eventually we were busy with other stuff so we missed it.

And since we're talking about Björk and her connections with Finland, I'm bored so here's some fun stuff and facts.

 

I've mentioned this before but this is from one of her interviews last fall: "I do remember putting my foot down around 10 or 11 years old though and refusing to play music by old dead German guys, I couldn't relate to them and being an Icelandic girl in the late twentieth century there wasn't much in common. So they got me this young flute teacher who introduced me to recent Finnish flute music which was so gorgeous and kinda folk and very connected to nature but also had a bit of atonal avant-garde in it. It kinda liquided back and forth between ancient folk melodies and the sound effecty abstract. What's not to love?" Living in a small country like Finland, I'm so proud of one of my favorite artists saying something like this. To quote Britney, very very cool. Since Utopia is based on flutes I would die in my front row seat if she addressed this somehow at her concert next month 

 

-------

 

Björk also started using a computer software in 1999 that's mostly used for creating string arrangements, which also allows you to export your score both as an audio file and as sheet music. She's said that she has even used it for making beats, “really weird chunky sounds, and then transferring it to live musicians”. And the software in question is called Sibelius, named after the Finnish composer and violinist Jean Sibelius - who lived and also died in the exact town I happen to live in at the moment.

 

-------

 

Björk's very first concert in Finland was at Pori Jazz in 1996, a festival held since 1966 in Pori where I was born and where I lived most of my life (20 years) before moving here. My whole family still lives there and I want to move back there at some point of my life. Since then she's performed in Finland only once, at Flow festival (where I saw Lana last year) in 2012. She was supposed to perform at another festival during Volta tour but she had to cancel as she had medical issues with her voice. Her concert at Finlandia hall next month will mark her 3rd time performing in Finland during her solo career and her first non-festival concert.

To my knowledge The Sugarcubes performed at least at Provinssirock festival in 1989, where Björk sang a part of Minun kultani kaunis on, and there's even a recording of her singing it as a child in 1975. Both recordings below.

 

 

 

-------

 

And then there's her relationship with the Moomins, central characters in a series of books and a comic strip by Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson. She did The Comet Song for the 2010 animated film and in her interviews at the time she talked about how she read the books as a kid and has also read them to her children, saying "Everybody's allowed to be as eccentric as they are. And I think maybe when I was reading this for my kids when I'm grown up, I actually noticed some sort of anti-authority aspect in it... and there's no hierarchy between the characters. They're all equal. I like that a lot."

She also got to spend some time at a small island where Tove Jansson spent a lot of her time (basically a rock with a small one-room cabin with a sauna and no trees whatsoever) and talking about the sparseness of Jansson's house Björk admitted, "I could just relate to the purity in it." She's also revealed some details about the writing process of the song: "At the time I was toying around with flutes quite a bit, and I mixed them with electronic sounds. The atmosphere seemed to be appropriate for the Moomins, where there has always been something bleak and dark, almost mystical. I wasn’t thinking in terms of nationalities, but it got a northern tone." - a northern tone I definitely recognize.

 

 

 

 

 

[triangles19 2,455]

Yeah I've seen people saying that the bass is extremely loud especially during Arisen my senses. I'm so happy that you ended up being okay, and yes I wish some people would realize that even one concert can fuck up your hearing real bad. I sort of learned this the hard way myself as I used to go to arena concerts and club gigs without earplugs - and I always left them with my ears ringing and I didn't take it seriously as the ringing had usually stopped the next morning when I woke up; until one morning when my left ear was still ringing. I observed the situation for a few days until I went to a doctor and I left with papers about tinnitus since there's basically no way to treat it. I couldn't fall asleep unless I had a little bit of noise around me so I used to have some CD playing in the background.

Almost four years have passed since then and the tinnitus in my left year is somewhat more "distant" than in the beginning or I'm just so used to it I don't really notice it in my everyday life anymore. Either way I have these annoying days every now and then when the ringing/buzzing is louder than usually so yeah my left ear is definitely damaged. I don't remember nor know what it feels like to be in complete silence anymore. I do my best to avoid loud noises (this even includes my boyfriend and our friend playing PS4 because they make a lot of those) and I definitely have my precious earplugs with me at concerts and when I (these days very rarely) go to clubs. I try to be as careful as possible yet still enjoy myself because I don't want my left ear to go deaf eventually which is a scary probability.

I don't know if people think they look embarrassing with earplugs or something but I definitely recommend them. Not only do they protect your hearing very effectively but there's also earplugs designed especially for concerts and clubs etc. that filter the noise, bass etc. and eventually you can actually hear a lot better than those not wearing any earplugs. In Finland you can find earplugs made of foam pretty much everywhere but they're almost always disposable and very annoying to put in your ears, at least for me they popped out almost immediately. So I got myself silicone ones online that I can put perfectly into my ears in a second and they're also skin color so they aren't very noticeable - for like 20€. Definitely one of the best purchases I've made and like I said I don't even go to any bars without them. When people complain about the DJ playing music too loud, I can hear it clearly and enjoy it.

 

Moving to a way lighter subject however, I haven't mentioned this here before but Björk had a Finnish, London-based designer Klaus Haapaniemi design her furniture inspired by Icelandic fantasy landscapes and lava fields close to her remote summer house in Iceland. The furniture were custom-built here in Finland and a year ago they were available for the public to see for a short period of time at a gallery in Helsinki. Being fans of her, my boyfriend and I had plans of seeing it - and sit on the sofa before Björk lol - since we live half and hour from Helsinki but eventually we were busy with other stuff so we missed it.

And since we're talking about Björk and her connections with Finland, I'm bored so here's some fun stuff and facts.

 

I've mentioned this before but this is from one of her interviews last fall: "I do remember putting my foot down around 10 or 11 years old though and refusing to play music by old dead German guys, I couldn't relate to them and being an Icelandic girl in the late twentieth century there wasn't much in common. So they got me this young flute teacher who introduced me to recent Finnish flute music which was so gorgeous and kinda folk and very connected to nature but also had a bit of atonal avant-garde in it. It kinda liquided back and forth between ancient folk melodies and the sound effecty abstract. What's not to love?" Living in a small country like Finland, I'm so proud of one of my favorite artists saying something like this. To quote Britney, very very cool. Since Utopia is based on flutes I would die in my front row seat if she addressed this somehow at her concert next month 

 

-------

 

Björk also started using a computer software in 1999 that's mostly used for creating string arrangements, which also allows you to export your score both as an audio file and as sheet music. She's said that she has even used it for making beats, “really weird chunky sounds, and then transferring it to live musicians”. And the software in question is called Sibelius, named after the Finnish composer and violinist Jean Sibelius - who lived and also died in the exact town I happen to live in at the moment.

 

-------

 

Björk's very first concert in Finland was at Pori Jazz in 1996, a festival held since 1966 in Pori where I was born and where I lived most of my life (20 years) before moving here. My whole family still lives there and I want to move back there at some point of my life. Since then she's performed in Finland only once, at Flow festival (where I saw Lana last year) in 2012. She was supposed to perform at another festival during Volta tour but she had to cancel as she had medical issues with her voice. Her concert at Finlandia hall next month will mark her 3rd time performing in Finland during her solo career and her first non-festival concert.

To my knowledge The Sugarcubes performed at least at Provinssirock festival in 1989, where Björk sang a part of Minun kultani kaunis on, and there's even a recording of her singing it as a child in 1975. Both recordings below.

 

 

 

-------

 

And then there's her relationship with the Moomins, central characters in a series of books and a comic strip by Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson. She did The Comet Song for the 2010 animated film and in her interviews at the time she talked about how she read the books as a kid and has also read them to her children, saying "Everybody's allowed to be as eccentric as they are. And I think maybe when I was reading this for my kids when I'm grown up, I actually noticed some sort of anti-authority aspect in it... and there's no hierarchy between the characters. They're all equal. I like that a lot."

She also got to spend some time at a small island where Tove Jansson spent a lot of her time (basically a rock with a small one-room cabin with a sauna and no trees whatsoever) and talking about the sparseness of Jansson's house Björk admitted, "I could just relate to the purity in it." She's also revealed some details about the writing process of the song: "At the time I was toying around with flutes quite a bit, and I mixed them with electronic sounds. The atmosphere seemed to be appropriate for the Moomins, where there has always been something bleak and dark, almost mystical. I wasn’t thinking in terms of nationalities, but it got a northern tone." - a northern tone I definitely recognize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh my god, at the same time I feel sorry for you, but in the other hand so relieved that you don't pay attention to it almost all the time.

Your testimony reverbs a lot in me because my problem isn't as fixed as my doctor said.

I hear a tinnitus since the 2 lasts days, called my doctor, he said it could be some kind of a "scar" to the solved trauma. I'll see him in 2 day to learn further and dig deeper.

I'm scary as hell (I'll PM for a question).

 

+

 

I don't understand, will it be her personnal sofa ? It's beautiful, looks like Biophilia visuals. Now your mission is : go to Helsinki and check if the butt of mother nature 2.0 will be as comfortable as it must be.

 

[jvcx 3,644]

Oh my god, at the same time I feel sorry for you, but in the other hand so relieved that you don't pay attention to it almost all the time.

Your testimony reverbs a lot in me because my problem isn't as fixed as my doctor said.

I hear a tinnitus since the 2 lasts days, called my doctor, he said it could be some kind of a "scar" to the solved trauma. I'll see him in 2 day to learn further and dig deeper.

I'm scary as hell (I'll PM for a question).

 

+

 

I don't understand, will it be her personnal sofa ? It's beautiful, looks like Biophilia visuals. Now your mission is : go to Helsinki and check if the butt of mother nature 2.0 will be as comfortable as it must be.

 

Oh I hope it's not too serious, sorry to hear that Yep she ordered the sofa for her cabin in Iceland! The tapestry made and the sofa itself were named Black Lake, I think they had some items with the textile for sale but I don't know if they still have any of those.

[borderlines 46]

Just bought some earplugs, thank you guys for bringing it up!

My hearing's been getting worse for years so it's probably better to take precautions, didn't realise flutes could be so bass-heavy lmao

[jvcx 3,644]

Björk explains designs of "magically utopian" sets and costumes

 

Björk looked to classic Icelandic paintings and summer nights when designing the sets and costumes for her Utopia world tour, she explains in an exclusive interview with Dezeen. The Icelandic musician, who is currently touring her latest album Utopia, told Dezeen that she took paintings from her childhood as inspiration when imagining the sets for the tour, which began 27 May.

She was also influenced by midsummer nights in Iceland, where there can be up to 24 hours of sunlight a day. "I feel like foreigners mostly know Iceland in the winter, the black lava, the volcanos, the glaciers, the harsh brutal angle, but there is a side to Iceland in midsummer, especially the sunny nights in nature that are very magically utopian," she said.

 

Set on an island in the sky, the album Utopia, released 24 November 2017, centres on a dreamlike, future utopia where technology and nature are in harmony. Speaking to Dezeen, the musician spoke of her efforts to create "an opium-like trance in a utopian garden", which she sought to achieve by combining the natural with the man made. "It is a proposal of our possible future when we learn to get technology and nature to collaborate," explained Björk.

 

To achieve this, Björk enlisted the help of set designer Heimir Sverrisson, and artist James Merry, who created the intricate headpieces for the singer and her 12-piece flute ensemble. "I found myself on long talks with the set designers, costumers, photographers and directors to finetune the balance between the biological and the urban," she said. "This world is an attempt to reveal a functioning cooperation between the natural and the manmade, but I want nature to win a little – so like 65 per cent outdoors and 35 per cent manmade stuff," she explained.
The colour scheme was chosen as a blend of peach and a "very specific" pale blue-green, while wind machines were used to capture the sensation of floating in the sky. For the headpieces, Björk wanted the aesthetic to be futuristic, citing the Sydney Opera House and sci-fi as influences. "[They] are an extension of bones as if they could help them make more powerful wind sounds, their skulls resonating with air," she said. "It is nature collaborating with technology so there are all kinds of hybrids, plant-bird-human," she explained. "I talked about my face being an orchid opening, but also with breathing flute holes on my neck – a mutant bird-plant. It needed to look fertile and potent, that there is a erotic energy there, a potential for multiplying but also a little scary, a little fucked up, a comedy element to it too."

 

Meanwhile, the flute player costumes designed by Threeasfour were made from a mix of white recycled plastic and "sensual peach hairiness". Björk's unique visual language has attracted a range of collaborations with designers, including Neri Oxman, who created a mask based on "digital interpretations" of her bone and tissue, and Maiko Takeda, who designed a spiky headpiece for an exhibition in Paris. Previously, she spoke to Dezeen on her music video for The Gate, which she describes as "when the chest changes from a wound to a gate, where you can send and receive love from".

 

//where does her genius come from 

[Solar Fields 4,163]

Literally I can’t think of anyone so unique and hardworking and talented

[jvcx 3,644]

Got my Blissing me and Arisen my senses vinyls a couple of hours ago! Loss remix(es) with even more raging beats next please Also the cum colored Arisen vinyl is so pretty

[Track 10 1,656]

does anyone know a masgerpost with all unreleased content (ex: isobel EP)

[SparkleJumpropeNoose 8,750]

does anyone know a masgerpost with all unreleased content (ex: isobel EP)

someone posted their really good reddit one but if anything was on itunes from it there was no download so it's aight for a start

[TheBoss 13,513]

does anyone know a masgerpost with all unreleased content (ex: isobel EP)

 

For Unreleased material and other mixes here's the best Masterpost

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/bjork/comments/8e1bfb/masterpost_demos_alternates_and_outtakes/

 

Singles and EPs (like Isobel) are all available on iTunes and streaming sites

[Track 10 1,656]

For Unreleased material and other mixes here's the best Masterpost

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/bjork/comments/8e1bfb/masterpost_demos_alternates_and_outtakes/

 

Singles and EPs (like Isobel) are all available on iTunes and streaming sites

 

Isobel EP isn't on iTunes in the USA 

[TheBoss 13,513]

Isobel EP isn't on iTunes in the USA 

 

Oops yes I forgot that her catalogue is pretty limited in the US for some reason, for me Spotify has all her old EPs and singles (I'm from Chile).

 

I'm not sure if the Chilean catalogue is the same as the US one tho

[Pluto 1,581]

does anyone know a masgerpost with all unreleased content (ex: isobel EP)

do you mean unreleased or all the singles/remixes/b-sides?

[Track 10 1,656]

do you mean unreleased or all the singles/remixes/b-sides?

 

yes

[Pluto 1,581]

yes

which one though  unreleased the reddit thread is the best but if it's b-sides i uploaded a bunch somewhere and i can look if you'd like

[Track 10 1,656]

which one though  unreleased the reddit thread is the best but if it's b-sides i uploaded a bunch somewhere and i can look if you'd like

 

yes please!! thanks <3

also does anyone have the glora instrumental?

[Pluto 1,581]

yes please!! thanks <3

also does anyone have the glora instrumental?

just sent you a pm, should be in there!

[Track 10 1,656]

just sent you a pm, should be in there!

 

thank u so much!!!! <3333

[jvcx 3,644]

Björk's gig in Finland might be cancelled or rescheduled because of Trump and Putin meeting in Helsinki a day earlier. The venue will be reserved for journalists for a few days and Trump and Putin might even meet there - and for now there's no confirmation what will happen to the concert. This is fucking bullshit.

 

Edit: At least LiveNation has been hyping the concert last couple of days and yesterday they even put some more tickets for sale because the production of the show was confirmed. However my stress levels are still high and I'm pissed af