Björk - Bastards
One Little Indian is set to release bastards, an album of remixed tracks from Björk’s Biophilia, on November 19. The album includes some of the remixes released in an eight-part series earlier this year selected by Björk and remastered for this album by Grammy-nominee Mandy Parnell. bastards features collaborations with artists and producers specifically chosen by Björk for this project including Current Value, Death
Grips, Hudson Mohawke, Alva Noto, Matthew Herbert, Omar Souleyman, 16-bit, These New Puritans, and The Slips. "I felt it important to gather together the essence of the remixes," said Björk of the project, "so I picked a quarter of them for one cd for people who are perhaps not too sassy downloaders or don’t have the time or energy to partake in the hunter-gathering rituals of the internet.
"I was incredibly impressed by how the core of the mixes took Biophilia somewhere else while still keeping its character, and like they so often do when at their best: the remixes gave the songs more beats; legs to dance on! I spent some time editing together not necessarily the best ones but the ones that made the strongest whole."
Both the original Biophilia and bastards will be available on 12" vinyl as well as CD and digital download. Please see below for the complete bastards tracklisting.
For the original Biophilia album, Björk chose and collaborated with app developers, scientists, writers, inventors, musicians, and instrument makers to create a multimedia exploration of the universe and its physical forces particularly those where music, nature, and technology meet. Each of the 10 songs on Biophilia is available as an app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. The Biophilia app suite was named one of 2011’s Best Apps by Apple.
The Biophilia live show premiered in 2011 at the Manchester International Festival (MIF) in England in what The Wall Street Journal called a 'magical evening.' Initially commissioned by MIF, the intimate Biophilia performance found Björk accompanied by a set of unique musical instruments including a MIDI-controlled pipe organ and twin musical Tesla coiles.
The performance also featured an award-winning 24-piece Icelandic female choir and visuals from the Biophilia apps. Björk went on to bring her Biophilia performance around the world with residencies in Iceland and New York and festival appearances in Europe.
"To bring the manifold ideas of her Biophilia app/album/educational series/multimedia experience to life," Pitchfork wrote, "[Björk is] accompanied by an all-female Icelandic choir, a dazzling set of nature films, and a variety of custom-made instruments, including a Tesla coil that descends from the ceiling. In short, it’s fucking mind-blowing."
The Biophilia project also includes interactive educational programming designed to teach students about the relationships between music, science and technology. Each of the 10 songs on the album is available as an app, with each individual app teaching a different feature of musicology.
As part of her residency in Iceland, Björk collaborated with the University of Iceland and the City of Reykjavík to create interactive workshops that reflect the themes and natural phenomena that inspired her Biophilia album. The project is set to continue in Reykjavík over the next three years, and it recently received the 2012 EUPRIO Award for best science media project.
Björk brought this educational programming to New York middle school students during her residency at the New York Hall of Science in February, and she also teamed up with the New York Public Library and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan to develop a series of programs running from July through December 2012.
"Purple plasma bolts zapped inside an eight-foot-high cylindrical cage, and the resulting sound waves modulated into organlike blasts. The kids were duly impressed…letting out yelps of ‘Wooh!’ and ‘Awesome!’" noted the New Yorker.
The workshops have also been held in Manchester, Oslo, São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Björk plans to take the workshops around the world in the next few years.
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