Breakups can lead to transcendent experiences. Bjork's ninth studio album, Vulnicura, is built from the ashes of her relationship with the contemporary artist Matthew Barney. The fractured beats and wavering strings coupled with her upfront and emotional lyrics amount to some of the best work in her nearly 30 year career. This is cerebral material where the artist's vulnerability is front and center, her lamentations on love turn to pain. The sound of the album is unmistakably Bjork's. Though she enlisted producers Arca (Kanye West's Yeezus, FKA twigs' LP1, their own Xen) and The Haxan Cloak, the arrangements of the songs and the way that fissures of drum and bass loops become subsumed by slow moving string figures could only come from her. Vulnicura is a masterwork that is only strengthened by its emotional immediacy.

• black double vinyl pressing
• housed in gatefold jacket w/ printed inner sleeves
• original release year: 2015
• music label: One Little Independent 2022

reviewed by Michu Meszaros 05/2015