From Iceland — BjörkMusic from Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9

Published August 5, 2005

With this new release, we get the dubious proposition of attempting to understand both Björk and Matthew Barney, wonder artist behind the Cremaster Cycle. What we can report is that Matthew Barney and Björk work well together on the tracks they wrote together—both touch on root instincts and emotions, using surprisingly adept and modern tools. The advantage the listener has in this CD is a more straightforward narrative drive. The vocals on this album are outstanding, especially an early Will Oldham track that draws a great deal of inspiration from Captain Beefheart. Most surprising, Björk’s voice only shows up on two tracks. Without her superstar voice, the mood and feel of her compositions is allowed to come through, and it survives very well. An extremely evocative disk.