Home > Concert Reviews > Archives > 2007 > September > 17 > Entry
Bjork brings ‘Icelandic soul’ to the Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When attending a concert by elfin Icelandic musical phenomenon Bjork, you can dress up to the nines, put on new threads, try out the whole spool, knock yourself out.
You still won’t exceed the lady on stage.
“No matter what you have on, as soon as she walks out from behind the curtain, you’re instant schoolteacher.”
So said Brett, an Atlanta hairdresser, who looked sharp at Monday’s sold-out show at the Fox Theater wearing leopard skin platform shoes and a red Mohawk.
But when Bjork finally did appear, in long hair and flowing Guinivere sleeves, it wasn’t her outfit that set style standards — at least it wasn’t on the level of the Leda-and-the-swan getup she rocked at the 2001 Academy Awards show — but her musical statements that scored high.
In her first show in Atlanta since her days with the band The Sugarcubes, she created remarkable soundscapes, blending the artificial fibers of techno sounds with the breathable, natural weave of a dozen or so horn players billed as an all-female, all-Icelandic brass band.
After an opening set by reggae-tinged Santo Gold, Bjork’s girl-power band trotted onstage, each member attached to a bicyclist’s red flag, bouncing and shining in the black light.
The roaring audience was on its feet from the flamethrowing kickoff, “Earth Intruders,” a martial stomp which is also the lead-off song on Bjork’s latest recording, “Volta.”
On top of it all was the commanding presence of Bjork’s inimitable rough-hewn voice, which was in fine form — air-raid-siren strong and yet always tuneful.
“She’s got Icelandic soul,” said an ecstatic Angie Evans, an Atlanta teacher who has waited half of her 31 years to see Bjork in concert.
An in-depth profile of the most famous Icelandian published in the New Yorker magazine in 2004 put her appeal in a nutshell. She adores Stockhausen and is comfortable with the extremes of classical music, but is equally as happy on the dance-floor with Tricky, Timbaland and Timberlake. In that profile she tells her producer the sound she wants: “A little Justin, a little Karlheinz.”
And so it was Monday, a night of culture high, low and sideways.
Permalink | |
