I Can Care For You | Bjork’s 9th album rebuilds the Utopia that was lost on Vulnicura, fauna and all.
Bjork stated that her last album was her heartbreak record, and she wanted to make her “Tinder” album. We’re coming out of the rubble of Vulnicura to see buds on flowers start to rise from the ashes. It’s like Mt. St. Helens eruptive landscape beginning to regrow. This is the Utopia Bjork is beginning to explore. She began to dive deep into the many utopian myths from around the world:
“We did a lot of research into flutes, into mythology. We looked at mythological stories from South America and Africa and Asia and Scandinavia and from all over that had flutes in them. And they all seemed to have that same kind of story, where all the women escape with the flutes and the children, and they go to someplace where there’s no violence and no aggression and form a new society that’s utopian — but three-quarters into the story the males return, and how do they deal with that.”
As a flutist herself, see the b-side “Gloria” from Big Time Sensuality as an example, it’s interesting to see Bjork explore the textures of this more delicate instrument. Along side this is the sound of bird calls and other odd ends that build this new found lush landscape she is trying to portray.
“Arisen my Senses” is a perfect way to open up this project. The alien wildlife sounds explode into fireworks of beats and harps. The heart of the sound is a sample of Arca’s “Little Now a Lot”, which provides the firework like eruptive blooms to the track. It very much feels like the sparks the surge of dopamine you get when you fall for someone. The song was the first written for the project and became a sort of archetype for the rest of the album:
“The first song we did was the first song on the album [‘Arisen My Senses’]. I actually found a loop of a mixtape or a SoundCloud thing that [Arca] had done three years prior. I just thought it was the most happiest firework that he’d ever done… I wasn’t really conscious of what I was doing. I was reaching for the most euphoric, antigravity moment that she’d done, and then I exaggerated that by looping it and writing a harp arrangement around it and singing on top of it these ecstatic lyrics. After we’d taken the saddest coordinates of each other and combined them into Vulnicura, we were doing the opposite now. And that was kinda the starting point.”
Like many of her albums before, the song is a perfect thesis statement. The little explosions are like mirrors to the spark you have from first kiss, “Awaken my senses/ I’ll weave it/ Just that kiss (awaken my senses)/ Was all there is.” This is probably my favorite song on the entire album.
After the ecstatic explosions on the album’s opener, “Blissing Me” settles us back down. We are lulled in with warm harps. I have seen some compare this song to “Headphones” off of Post. Unlike the love of sound that “Headphones” seemed to circle around, “Blissing Me” focuses more on the two lovers. It’s a more delicate feeling, “His hands are good in protecting me/ Touching and caressing me/ But would it be trespassing/ Wanting him to be blissing me.” One of big relation to “Headphones” is the bounding that these to new found loves have over music, “Sending each other MP3s/ Falling in love to a song.” Bjork told Pitchfork:
“There was definitely a moment making this album where how much I was texting went up. It was with several people; it wasn’t just one person… When you feel really connected to someone and you are texting them every day, sometimes all day, and then you meet them, you kind of feel embarrassed. It’s like it’s more natural to be texting them than to actually sit next to them. I’d never really had that feeling before. I found that very exotic. It was this mental energy that was almost utopian, like a fantasy. I wanted to explore that and see what it felt like. I don’t think you can blame that on technology — you hear stories about people 200 years ago writing each other letters and completely falling in love. Maybe they didn’t meet that often, but it was still pure love.”
A single version with additional lyrics performed by serpentwithfeet along with a harp version was released in 2017.
“The Gate” is probably the most slow burning track in her entire catalog. Much like the track’s progress to blossoming, it was a slow grow on me as well. I always find myself coming back to this song though. The second half of this song truly glows sonically like the neon edges of a comb jellyfish. It’s unlike anything I had ever heard prior to this. This is her coming out after the weathering the storm of Vulnicura, “My healed chest wound/ Transformed into a gate/ Where I receive love from/ Where I give love from/ And I care for you, care for you.” Lyrics of sending out prisms of love echo the arpeggiated rising synth tones. You’re ready to love again.
“Utopia” and “Courtship” have a very similar sonic structure. The erratic flutes seem to be playing similar parts only at a lower octave on “Courtship”. “Utopia” samples the alien like creatural tones of Yulunga’s “Dead Can Dance”. There is a sort of bizarre textural feeling, like walking through the scrub of a new distant world. The utopia the song is titled after is one Bjork is trying to build back after the destruction she felt in Vulnicura. “My instinct has been shouting at me for years/ Saying let’s get out of here/ Huge toxic tumor bulging underneath the ground here/ Purify, purify, purify, purify toxicity” Bjork sings suggesting her hopes to heal back herself to the once beautiful and healthy place she once sung about it Vespetine’s “Hidden Place”. I love the vocal performance on the track along with the otherworldly animals sound. I just find the flutes a bit too freeform for my taste. It’s a song that I like the concept to more than the the execution. “Courtship” takes into account the many heartbreaks a person can endure when finding love and how that can begin to harden them, “He turned me down/ I then downturned another/ Who then downturned her/ The paralyzing juice of rejection/ His veins full of lead/ He’s left with loving what he lost/ More than what he has.” Bjork’s hope to not spill more hurt out into the world is a lovely sentiment, “Weave into your own dream/ I trust myself to re-archive/ My love historic stream.” I think the flutes and Arca’s production work better here than on “Utopia”. It’s mysterious and beautiful.
“Body Memory” is a sort of sister track to Vulnicura’s “Black Lake”. Bjork’s reclaiming herself and her future, “Then the body memory kicks in/ And I trust the unknown/ Unfathomable imagination/ Surrender to future”. There is a nod to Vulnicura in the strings and place along with the flutes. The textures in this song are wonderful. Again, there is a sense of almost arcane storytelling in the sounds that envelop this track. There is also a sense of Bjork returning to what she loved, which wasn’t the urban life style of her ex-partner: “I wasn’t born urban/ Toxic doesn’t agree with me/ Love lured me here/ Into a stagnant state.” Although another long track, at almost ten minutes, I do really like the growth and sonic landscape this song provides in Bjork’s healing process.
“Feature Creatures” finds Bjork falling for anyone whose physical features, accent, or habits mirror those of her lovers. Coming out of the darkness of a particularly hard break up, I imagine she’s seeing all the things that attracted her to her ex are stirring up these emotions. It’s a sort of tribute to the love she once held, “When I hear someone/ With same accent as yours/
Asking directions/ With the same beard as yours/ I literally think I am five minutes away from love.” She notes the oddity of this. It’s bittersweet. Bjork samples “Kindred Spirits” by Sarah Hapkins. The sampled whirlies sound like swirling ancient chants. Unlike the darkness of Vulnicura, it’s more like coming out of limbo back to yourself. The ending flutes provide a grounding hopeful tone; she’s ready to love again and love what she once loved again. Several remixes of “Feature Creatures” have been released in 2019. My personal favorite is the Kelly Lee Owens take. The second half of the album still seethes a bit with the loss that Vulnicura bleed with. This is still a Utopia we are rebuilding, so there is some scars left from the prior eruptions. “Losss” echos a that pain from the prior project, but breathes in some sanguine feelings. Through the mourning process, “Soft is my chest, I didn’t allow loss/ Loss make me hate, didn’t harden from pain/ This pain we have will always be there/ But the sense of full satisfaction too”, it appears we’ve made it out the other end find some revery in what was once had. Arca’s thunderous beats, almost reminiscent of Homogenic, give a miasma to this Utopian sound of harps and flutes. It’s a song I think I will grow to enjoy with repeated listens, but I am not immediately taken by.
The most stark song on the album is “Sue Me”. It’s the ugliest moment on the album. Echoing the real world custody battle Bjork around daughter Isadora, “Sue Me” sees her at at her most acidic. Lyrically, it’s much more in the realm of Vulnicura. “Just can’t take her suffer/ It’s so unfair/ The sins of the father/ They just fucked it all up/ We had the best family/ We had it all/ We had it all in our hands/ He pulled us through the wringler/ Narcissistic” Bjork seethes here. The song stands out drastically compared to the others. I understand the sentiment, a mother not willing to lose her daughter to both bitterness and a custody battle. It just feels so out of place on the album. “Tabula Rosa”, which means an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals or a clean slate, aims to give her daughter a clean slate forward. It doubles as both a figurative clean slate from patriarchal baggage the world puts on women and that of the damage Bjork’s ex has put upon them, “Clean plate/ Tabula rasa for my children/ Let’s clean up/ Break the chain of the fuck-ups of the fathers/ It is time/ For us women to rise, and not just take it lying down/ It is time.” Compared to the caustic nature of “Sue Me”, this maternal shield Bjork puts up to keep her daughter away from misogyny and struggles is a touching moment. It’s a darker moment, yet tender.
Much like the title suggests, “Claimstaker” sees Bjork marking claim on herself and what she holds most dear. There is a call back to nature here. In taking back back herself, she takes back one her love for the outdoors, “Mark my nest with song (mark my nest)/ Hear the, the echo from (echo from the cliff)/ I draw laser line through lake/ To take a physicality/ I inhale this physicality.” At this point, Bjork is rebuilding her private utopia and falling into her passions. There’s a release of anger. Instead of flutes, we have strings and synth tones. “Paradisia” is the albums sole instrumental track. It’s a short flute intermission with ambient nature sounds. A nice little break before we end out the album. “Saint” is a sort of musical embodiment of a maternal saintly figure. Bjork envisions her at her happiest taking charity on others, “She reaches out to orphans and refugees/ Embraces them with thermal blankets/ Her favourite childhood moments/ Were at a hospital for the disabled.” For Bjork, this appears to be music in it of itself, “Music heals too/ I’m here to defend it.” I really like the bird call samples from “Gran Sabana” by Jean C. Roché. This track echos Vespertine the most to me, specifically “Harm of Will”, with it’s very fine delicate feeling. The album ends on a hopeful note with “Future Forever”. Bjork asks for you to let go of the past and aim optimistically forward, “Imagine a future and be in it/ Feel this incredible nurture, soak it in/ Your past is on a loop, turn it off/ See this possible future and be in it.” There is a little nod lyrically to “All is Full of Love”, “Trust your head around/ Guide your stare elsewhere/ Your love is already waiting/ You’re already in it.” We end without flutes, but with glittering synths with come and go beneath Bjork’s vocals.
I appreciate how Utopia is a process of reemergence over the loss in Vulnicura. It’s much more like a rejuvenation of a paradise from the scars of war. There are sweet moments that bring in the elation of finding new love and dark moments of looking back at the apocalyptic events that ruined this land in the first place. I love aspects of this project, but not it in its entirety. Some of the tracks, “Utopia”, “Claimstaker”, and “Future Forever” feel a bit flat. “Sue Me” stands out drastically. The album also feels a bit long. It’s a very unique project, but not my favorite in her catalog.
My favorite tracks on the album:
- “Arisen My Senses”
- “The Gate”
- “Body Memory”
- “Tabula Rosa”
- “Saint”
My overall rating: 5.5 out of 10. It’s not a bad album, but just a bit hard to connect with. I think it’s length is also part of its downfall. If a few tracks were left as bonus tracks or b-sides I think it would help. We are soon to be graced with the last in this trilogy of albums, Fossora, on September 30th, 2022. The fungal period in her career already as tensed to be one of her most interesting.
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