Contrary to how it might sound, Björk’s bastards is not a war movie in which the Icelandic singer assembles a crack team of Nazi hunters and then shrieks the bad guys into submission, although I would totally watch the shit out of that. The truth, sadly, is a little more prosaic than that – bastards is a remix collection that takes in songs from her most recent album, Biophilia. In a lot of ways, it’s a pretty refreshing listen. You might not go as far as to call it ‘fun’, but with a wide array of sounds and textures on offer, it certainly has a sense of adventure and eclecticism that has been missing from some of some of Björk’s more recent works. The highlight comes early on, with Hudson Mohawke’s take on Virus – the Scottish producer takes the delicate, twinkling original and adds layers of blasting horns and sinister bass vibrations, creating what sounds like an epic lullaby for the end of the world.
Experimental hip hop group Death Grips contribute two tracks, adding a stuttering, not-quite-dubstep beat to Sacrifice, and pumping Thunderbolt full of pneumatic hisses and clattering percussive sounds. Syria’s Omar Souleyman also shows up twice, fusing hypnotic Middle Eastern vibes onto Thunderbolt and Crystalline, at times turning Björk into a backing vocalist on her own songs. Alva Noto adds a distorted beat to Dark Matter, turning it into something of a Homogenic throwback, while The Slips’ version of Moon sounds like it came right off the Bubble Bobble soundtrack. No amount of studio trickery can compensate for the fact that Björk’s songs just don’t carry the excitement or melodic heft that they used to, but bastards offers a couple of new things for you to drag and drop into your ‘Best Of Björk’ playlist.
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
Best Track: Virus (Hudson Mohawke Peaches And Guacamol Remix)
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Biophilia BJORK, Until The Quiet Comes FLYING LOTUS
In A Word: Arch
