Selmasongs

by Bjoerk

Overview

Selmasongs: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack Dancer in the Dark is, and is not, a Bjoerk album. While it's filled with rampant creativity, startling emotional leaps, and breathtaking vocals and arrangements, it isn't as playful as her other albums, even 1997's relatively dark Homogenic. Instead, it presents Bjoerk as Selma, her character from Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark: a Czech factory worker who is going blind but finds hope and refuge in the musicals she watches at the cinema. (Von Trier wanted to work with Bjoerk after seeing Spike Jonze's musical-inspired video for "It's Oh So Quiet.") She acts through the music she composed, performed, and produced with conductor/arranger Vincent Mendoza and her longtime collaborators Mark "Spike" Stent and Mark Bell. Selma's unsinkable optimism and tragic end are telegraphed through songs like the irrepressible, cartoonish "Cvalda" to the sad, starry lullaby "Scatterheart." Selmasongs' best tracks are poignant, inventive expressions of Bjoerk's talent and Selma's daydreams and suffering. "In the Musicals" shows how easy it is for Selma to slip into one of her Technicolor reveries: "There is always someone to catch me," Bjoerk sighs as clouds of strings, harps, and xylophones rise up to meet her. "New World" reprises the simultaneously hopeful and ominous melody of "Overture," adding striking vocals and shuffling, industrial beats that reflect Selma's life in the factory as well as Bjoerk's distinctive style. Selmasongs also succeeds as a soundtrack, sketching in details of Selma's story. "I've Seen It All," a duet with Thom Yorke, captures her stunted romance with a co-worker, while the tense "107 Steps" takes the listener to her journey's end. Intimate and theatrical, innovative and tied to tradition, Selmasongs paints a portrait of a woman losing her sight, but it maintains Bjoerk's unique vision. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	06/16/2023
Label:	One Little Indian
UPC:	5016958096816

Tracks

1. Overture
2. Cvalda
3. I've Seen It All
4. Scatterheart
5. In the Musicals
6. 107 Steps
7. New World

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Bjoerk   Primary Artist,Celeste
Siobhan Fallon   Primary Artist
Catherine Deneuve   Primary Artist
Vince Mendoza   Primary Artist,Conductor
Thom Yorke   Primary Artist,Guest Artist
Guy Sigsworth   Celeste

Technical Credits

Bjoerk   Producer,Arranger,Composer
Thom Yorke   Performer
Guy Sigsworth   Arranger
Sigurjon Sigurdsson   Composer
Mark Bell   Producer,Composer
Tracy Louise Spencer   Composer
Ben Georgiades   Assistant Engineer
Sjon   Composer
Wayne Wilkins   Mixing Assistant
Lars Trier   Composer
Paul Walton   Engineer
Catherine Deneuve   Performer
Matt Fields   Assistant Engineer
Lars Von Trier   Composer
Bjoerk Gudjmundsdottir   Composer
Vince Mendoza   Arranger
Jake Davies   Engineer
Geoff Foster   Engineer
Mark "Spike" Stent   Mixing