Album Review: Björk Comes Down to Earth on ‘Fossora’

Legendary musician Björk has just released her highly anticipated 10th studio album Fossora. Björk establishes her roots, but gets her inspiration from an unlikely and phosphorescent source: mushrooms.

Written by Adam Cherian

Upon first listening to the song “Mycelia,” one thinks of the underground networks of interconnected cells that fungi communicate through. The call and response nature of the song is reminiscent of this; different synth notes harmonize in a way that resembles talking. Even without lyrics, the song masterfully captures the grounded yet fanciful sound of Björk’s latest album.

Icelandic icon Björk is back with her long-awaited 10th studio album, Fossora. Five years after critically acclaimed Utopia, she has decided to ground herself. The feathery electronic production on Utopia is no more, as Björk comes down to Earth with heavy bass instrumentals, as well as a surprising turn to gabber and rave influences. She explores themes of family, loss, and nature through production that can only be described as 100% organic. And though the album does feel very one note in its themes, Björk’s musical genius still provides the listener with a sonically engrossing experience.

After witnessing Björk’s fall from heaven in Utopia, the listener is greeted with Fossora’s lead single, “Atopos.” Polarizing upon its release for how auditorily dissonant and unpleasant it is, the song employs the use of the bass clarinet sextet that Björk mentioned in an Instagram post leading up to the release. The song begins as classic avant-garde pop and slowly devolves into gabber, a subgenre of electronic dance music that uses a punchy sounding subwoofer to create fast and intense beats. In an interview with The Guardian,” the songstress said that her love of this type of music comes from her obsession with the group “Gabber Modus Operandi,” an Indonesian duo who specialize in electronic party music. She even employs one half of the duo, Kasimyn, as a collaborator on three tracks. The combination of the bass clarinets and punchy sub creates a rich, earthly sound as she begs the question to listeners: “Are these not just excuses to not connect?”

Photo courtesy of One Little Independent Records

“Atopos” is whimsically dark. The same can be said for fungi: living organisms that feed off of dead material, yet are colorful and amusing to watch. Björk described Fossora as “her mushroom album” in an interview with Pitchfork. “But mushrooms are fun, right? They’re psychedelic and they’re bubbly, and they pop up everywhere,” Björk elaborated. The album’s ninth track,“Fungal City” perfectly encapsulates this effervescent aura. With pizzicato strings and lush melodies in the chorus, Björk, along with collaborator serpentwithfeet, constructs a fantasy world to reminisce about a lover. The punchy subwoofer makes another appearance as its rhythmic punching creates a sensation of walking through a woodland mushroom burgh. Serpentwithfeet’s angelic background vocal contributions represent the harmony this unnamed lover has created for her. Never before has Björk been so in love, singing “His body calligraphs the space above my bed / Horizontal signature on my skin / I'm in rapture…” as she falls deeper and deeper in love with her muse.

Björk found inspiration for Fossora during the Covid-19 lockdown. As she mentioned in the same Guardian interview, the pandemic was not as hard on her as it was for others, and she felt like a homebody for the first time. This motivated her to make a record about placing down mycelium roots. One way she explores this theme throughout the record is through the motif of motherhood. The mother is the ultimate grounding force; she represents Earth and nature, and no one would exist without her. The third single “Ancestress” is an ode to Björk’s late mother, who died in 2018 due to health complications. She doesn’t mourn her mother’s death, but, rather, celebrates her life in this melancholic tribute. Björk reflects on her mother’s last days: “My ancestress' clock is ticking / Her once vibrant rebellion is fading / I am her hope keeper / I assure hope is there / At, at all times,” giving thanks to the strong woman who raised her.

The mix of soft moments and high intensity beats breaks up the monotonous sound and themes that are on this record. Though the album remains sonically stimulating, the running theme of fungal sound becomes uninteresting. Björk is a mastermind at creating albums based off of a few visual cues and concepts —Take her 2011 record Biophilia, an ambitious concept album where Björk made songs based off of different phenomena in the natural world, for example. The album evolves and shifts throughout the tracklist. The barebones and spiny production of “Virus” is immediately followed up by the erratic and passionate sound of “Sacrifice.” This is not the case on Fossora, as the oppressive base and gabber production along with whimsical flutes can be found on all the tracks. Songs like “Allow,” and “Freefall” share instrumentally similar production, all piling up to create a stagnant sound overall.

Despite this, however, Fossora is still a contender for one of Björk’s most ambitious works. This is the same woman who made the entirely acapella album, Medúlla. Björk set out to make a mushroom album, and fungal is what this album is. Björk finally spades her feet in the dirt and fully roots herself into reality. Along with the acceptance of her mother’s passing, Björk comes to realize that her own time as a mother has an expiration date. The closing track “Her Mother’s House” is a perfect way to conclude the album. Björk says farewell to her youngest child, Isadora Bjarkardóttir Barney, leaving the home, with her contributing vocals to the track as a feature. Though it is sorrowful and melodramatic, it is an emotional goodbye, and a welcome to settling down in later adulthood. She sends the message to her daughter, “The more I love you (The more you love me) / The better you will survive (The better I will survive) / The more freedom I give you (The more freedom you give me),” knowing that she will always have her fungal network laid out in the land of fire and ice. Always on the cutting edge, and never a minute behind, Fossora proves that the pop legend continues to make headway for herself like a persistent growing mushroom on a dead log.