Bjork discussing all of her albums on new podcast 'Sonic Symbolism'
The 30th anniversary of Björk‘s first album, Debut, is next year, and she’s got a new album, Fossora, on the way before that, so it seems like a good time reexamine where she’s been and where she’s going next. That’s exactly what she’ll be doing on new podcast Björk: Sonic Symbolism.
“When I get asked about the differences of the music of my albums, I find it quickest to use visual short cuts. That’s kind of why my album covers are almost like homemade tarot cards,” says Björk, explaining the title of the podcast. “The image on the front might seem like just a visual moment, but for me it is simply describing the sound of it. I try to express it with the colour palette, the textures of the textiles, with what I am holding, the posture I am in, and the angle of it shows its relationship to the world. Also, the emotion of the mouth tries to share the overall mood of the album. Perhaps you can call it some sort of a sonic symbolism? Most of us go through phases in our lives that take roughly 3 years, and it is not a coincidence this is also how long it takes to make an album or a film. This podcast is an experiment to capture which moods, timbres, and tempos were vibrating during each of these phases.”
A co-production of Talkhouse and Mailchimp, Björk: Sonic Symbolism premieres on September 1 with three episodes/albums, with new episodes following every Thursday through October 13. Joined by philosopher and writer Oddný Eir and musicologist Ásmundur Jónsson, Björk will share “stories that have never been told as she lets listeners into a process that continues to inspire, experiment and redefine the boundaries of how a musician works.”
In the trailer for the podcast, Björk says she’ll be discussing “each of my 10 albums,” so does that mean we’ll have Fossora by October 13? We shall see. Listen to the trailer for Björk: Sonic Symbolism below.
Bjork will also appear on the August 31 episode of the Listening podcast where “10 highly-acclaimed musicians make sense of the world by transforming their surroundings into original songs.” On it, Bjork will discuss her recent performance with Iceland’s Hamrahlíð Choir. Listening has already featured Jeff Tweedy, Katie Crutchfield, Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt and more.
