björk for dummies

How to Get Into Fossora (If You Don’t Get Björk Yet)

Photo: bjork/YouTube

For someone who makes pop music, Björk can be a remarkably difficult artist to listen to. One of the most important musicians of the past 30-odd years, the Icelandic singer writes songs that eschew “structure” and “melody” in favor of “whatever Björk wants to do.” Listening to her music can sometimes feel like a feat of endurance.

Given her opposition to the sounds that sound good (not a value judgment), it can be hard to imagine Björk as a pop artist, given that “pop” was, at least at one point, a shortening of the word “popular.” In critic Kelefa Sanneh’s book Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, she shows up twice: in a section on electronic dance music and in a section on singer-songwriters, not anywhere in the pop chapter. “Björk, from Iceland, left her band the Sugarcubes to create stupefying mini symphonies that were entirely her own,” he says of her work. “Stupefying mini symphonies” is correct, but it makes listening to her sound like homework. Also, Björk doesn’t think of herself that way. “I’m a pop musician and I make music for everyone, not for VIP or educated people,” she said in a documentary about the making of her album Homogenic.

Fossora, her newest project, does not sound like most “pop music” of recent years. It is based in bass clarinet and fungi, with a title that is sort of in Latin — “fossora” is an intentionally incorrect feminization of the word “fossor,” which means digger. Esoteric? Perhaps, but not without intention. Fossora is not just a title, but a command, forcing the listener to dig into the album rather than simply listen. It’s a big ask, but Björk’s archive is the kind that warrants that kind of work. So with Björk’s claim that she is for everyone in mind, here is a guide, for those interested, to getting into Fossora (if you don’t get Björk yet).

Start by trying to live in Björk’s world

Even as someone who is a pop-music fan first and everything else (American, writer, gay) second, Björk remained a virtually impenetrable artist for me for much longer than her contemporaries. When I learned to love her work, the biggest factor in the change was a mind-set shift. First, I stopped expecting revelation upon first listen — even now, Björk’s music rarely hits me directly, and instead creeps up on me until I can’t imagine life without it. Second, I stopped feeling for a structure that wasn’t there and simply lived inside what Björk was creating.

That second point is, perhaps, an odd one to understand at face value — until I listened to Björk, I was unaware that when I listened to other music I was feeling for a structure. Luckily, Björk has built a perfect metaphor for beginning your Björk-ening into Fossora. The first track on the album — the entry if you will — is titled “Atopos.”

Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamar said, when discussing the atopon (from the same root as atopos, if you can believe it), “This actually means ‘the placeless’, that which cannot be fitted into the categories of expectation in our understanding and which therefore causes us to be suspicious of it.” This idea of placelessness is a helpful tool when listening to Björk, because it allows you to be free of the need to find solid footing. Finding a hook, a sound, or a beat to groove to isn’t helpful, because there will always be a sense that it might disappear or be subsumed by something more off-putting. So instead, don’t look for a groove, just accept that the music is without easy footholds.

Get into the atopos with Björk’s visual assistance

If the atopon is a weirdly large concept to grasp at first, that’s fine. One thing Björk always has that is designed to help you enter her world more easily is stupendous visuals. The lead single for Fossora was “Atopos,” another way in which it functions as the entry point into this era. The accompanying music video is appropriately strange, filled with musicians wearing fungal pants and a DJ with a fungal hat and Björk with a fungal everything. For a song that uses silence so intentionally, the video can be a sensory overload. When watching “Atopos,” I find it most helpful to allow each element — the music, the visual, the lyrics on screen — to take up equal space in my brain.

“Atopos” is a song about connection and about breaking down the barriers that would preclude it. The song itself follows that goal — in order to enjoy it, you’re forced to remove preconceived notions of what pop music sounds like and what the music videos look like. That process, which Björk is arguing is not just good but necessary when she sings, “If my plant doesn’t reach towards you, there’s internal erosion towards all,” is assisted by the sight of her dancing around in a furry green dress. It’s absurd, no point pretending it’s not, but once you can get past the absurdity, you’ve moved into a place that allows for a more vulnerable listening experience — you can connect.

Commit to something small

From here, it’s worth your time to determine your own path. Instead of listening to the album altogether, which is still an overwhelming experience, find portions of Fossora that are worth digging into.

One song run that might be of interest is the maternal duo “Sorrowful Soil” and “Ancestress.” Both are dedications to Björk’s mother Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, who died in 2018. “Sorrowful Soil” was written during her mother’s illness, and is a eulogy in response to the typical Icelandic “patriarchal obituary” that seeks to find a “matriarchy obituary,” Björk told Pitchfork, in line with the titular feminization of a masculine Latin word. “Ancestress” was written after her mother’s death and is written in an epitaph in an Icelandic folk style. In terms of both the songs’ clear subject matter and basis in Icelandic tradition, the two are a bit less “placeless” than the rest of the record, so if you’re seeking a solid ground, they might be a good place to start.

But if it’s the sonic listlessness that’s throwing you off, “Fungal City” may be a better place to spend your time. Although in many ways “Fungal City” is as sonically strange as anything else on Fossora, the song features serpentwithfeet, an experimental artist with roots in neo-soul. His voice is different from Björk’s — while she’s sharply cutting her syllables, he’s providing a smooth legato with an occasional melisma that sounds more like a version of pop that is familiar to a broad audience. Serpentwithfeet doesn’t make the song more typical, but on “Fungal City” he literalizes a tension between Björk and the outside world that is normally just between Björk and a confused audience. If you’re lost in Björk’s sonics, serpentwithfeet might be your audience surrogate.

Now dig into the album

With a Björk album, it’s helpful to walk in with signposts. Now, after you’ve developed some things to look forward to, dig in. With Fossora, you’ll find themes of feminine reclamation, connection, and love. Upon first listen, I found it difficult to process Fossora as a whole, but upon repeated listens, it’s grown on me (like a fungus) with specific lyrics, tunes, and concepts following me around in my daily life. Björk may not be a simple artist, but she’s not making herself obtuse with the intention of being indecipherable. Instead, she’s making her audience recalibrate their listening habits. To journey into her atopos, you don’t need to be “VIP or educated,” you need to be ready to connect.

How to Get Into Fossora (If You Don’t Get Björk Yet)