All Björk and no play - PLAYBACK by Scott Garceau

There are two schools of thought on Björk. One is that she’s a tireless innovator, a deconstructive artist, a creative tempest with ideas to burn. The other is that she’s loony as a bedbug, and that her music expresses the contents of a crazy person’s skull. Love her or hate her, if this Icelandic waif is crazy, she’s crazy like a fox.

Her new album consists of seven new songs (all penned by her) featured in the movie Dancer in the Dark, director Lars von Trier’s follow-up to Breaking the Waves. They are, like her, complex and sometimes a little nutty. As she strays further from the cutting-edge dance pop and remixes she pioneered with collaborators like Marius De Vries and Nellee Hooper, it will be interesting to see just how far Björk can take her high-wire crazy act.

Her performance in the film, just like her music, has elicited divided opinion. Some say her role as a Czech immigrant factory worker in the US is histrionic, primal and not even acting. But she did bag the Best Actress award at Cannes (where people are usually partying too much to actually watch films).

Selmasongs takes Björk’s flirtation with big-band production one big step further. I mean, we knew she was ambitious, but who knew she wanted to be the next Oscar and Hammerstein?

After the opening Overture, the music takes on industrial elements: factory sounds, levers and punch presses dictate the rhythm, before spinning off into Björkian whimsy, complete with male chorus, strings, glockenspiels and full orchestra. Underneath it, the lyrics are a kind of celebratory love song to her daughter in the movie, Selma (hence the album title). It’s really quite mad.

Björk is joined by Radiohead yelper Thom Yorke on track three, I’ve Seen It All, a duet about travel sung by two stranded dreamers (I can only guess; I haven’t seen the movie yet).

Track four, a lullaby called Scatterheart, shows Björk recycling elements from her countless single remixes (the scratchy LP sample, the analog synth rhythms) to pleasant effect. It’s the closest thing to Björk’s previous work, and one of the nicer melodies on the short (32:12 minutes) recording.

In the Musicals features tap-dancing, drumming and other percussive work, as well as a lush orchestra backing, all of which makes more sense when watching the film, I suppose.

All in all, it will be interesting to see Dancer in the Dark can pull off these big, orchestral numbers without stumbling. As an artist, Björk has nothing left to prove, really. She’s remade herself in whatever image suits her at the time, without sacrificing her unique, if quirky, musical sense. She may be a little demented, but that’s the price one pays for not standing still.