Customer Reviews

Drawing Restraint 9 - O.S.T.

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Anyone considering buying this album needs to know 2 things about it: 1) None of the tracks on it are iPod worthy. You won't be jamming to any of the tunes on this effort by any means. 2) All of the somgs on this album are meant to convey an emotion...and deep reactionary emotion. Drawing Restraint 9 accomplishes this very well. If you're looking for catchy tunes and pop lullabies, then buy homogenic or vespertine. If your looking to explore human emotion and the way music evokes the human condition...then give medulla a good listen. If that album seems too tame for you, then Drawing Restraint 9 will be an essential in your music collection.
To be perfectly honest, this album is extremely creepy. It reminds me of Fantamos, only I can't understand it because most of it is in Japenese. Although the language might seem like it presents a problem, the emotions evoked from tracks like Storm are universal. I give this album 4 stars because it accomplishes it's task very well, the album, however, is inaccessable my most listeners and will end up collecting dust on most people's shelves (like mine for example). And I love Bjork...I own all of her work and she is a personal friend of mine. Even so, I doubt I will ever say to myself, "Listening to Drawing Restraint ( would fit the mood perfectly right now!"

I really love this album, though I can see why it may not have mass appeal.
Musically, it is a highly imaginative work, cramming seemingly chaotic but beautifully constructed compositions into an organic whole, dressed up with complex rhythms, strange sounds and sound effects- on Bath, Bjork manages to make her voice sound like a tea kettle! Add Japanese theatre antics, occasional bizarre lyrics and you get a very vivid aural experience. It is a soundtrack, but for me it works just fine without the actual visual part- it would be interesting to see it, but I don't feel that anything is missing.
I can't really point out a favourite track, every song has its extreme wicked charms, but if I had to choose, the bells, glass and spoons adorned Ambergris March and the rain drenched, wailing, reverb filled Storm are the strongest, most original statements; Hunter Vessel, with its majestic brass sound, is the one I keep returning to a lot.
Certainly, casual fans and admirers of Bjork's pop side might be freaked out, and many people may just not get it. This is not to say that this work needs any particularly deep thinking on anyone's part in order to be appreciated- if anything, soft spot for all things primal might be useful here- but it certainly helps if you are in a mood for strange, unhinged music. For serious Bjork fans, this is a great dish, for anybody else, it's really worth taking a plunge in these whale fishing waters. It's not a safe, orderly and conventionally pleasant musical experience, but at the very least, it may inspire an intense (and verbose?) reaction, good or bad, but certainly strong.

Okay, firstly, there are many 1 and 5 star reviews on this album and not much in-between. The one-star reviewers probably haven't let the album grow on them and reach it's peak yet, but I am not sure how an intelligent persson can rate this album 1 star.......

The standouts on this album are Bath, Hunter Vessel, Storm and Cetacea, but, really, none of the tracks are BAD. I will now review the albums highlights:
The album opens with Gratitude and features the vocals of Will Oldham. The vocals seemed horrible to me at first, but now I think they are just good - but Bjorks are far better. The vocalists narrates a letter that he wrote, and the childrens choir on the third verse really climaxes the song. Track 2, Pearl, is a lot like Ancestors (Medulla). Ambergis March features the sho, bells, harpsichord and other percussion (eg drums). It is instrumental and sounds very Japanese, although I don't think it uses the pentatonic scale..... Bath is a very inacessible track and although one of my favourites, I can't really explain it. It features bells and sort of reminds me of a weirder version of Tori Amos' Bells For Her. Hunter Vessel reminded my of a sailboat for some reason - I love that funny brass section! (It returns in Vessel Shimenawa) Storm is the common favourite, and also one of my top-3. It is one of the three tracks on the album where you here Bjork, although you hear them the most here. Holographic Entrypoint is 10 minutes of Japanese singing by some guy with a percussion instrument - sticks or something. Cetacea is one of the more accessible songs from the album, but it is not accessible, from anyones point of view. And the album closes beautifully with Antarctic Return.

90%

Bjork has been my favorite artist for a long time. Perhaps this is because she is always constantly changing and doing different things. She is constantly evolving her musical style and her range broadens with each album. Bjork is one of the only artists unafraid of trying new things, of developing herself musically. She continues to move away from more commercial music in order to find herself musically.

With "Debut," she brought pop music to new heights with hits like "Big Time Sensuality" and "Venus as a Boy." Again, she changed tracks and added new levels to pop and electronica with the aptly named album "Post." In "Homogenic," she was drawn towards orchestra music and the darker sound of love. In "Vespertine", she moved towards the softer, more introspective side of music.

She claims to make music for everyone. She has made pop music, rock music, alternative and punk music and has even sung in Icelandic Jazz. Some call her a visionary; I call her a musical genius. Though she claims to make music for everyone, she's isn't for everyone. You either love her or hate her. Most can't stand her; some have even compared her vocals to a cat being hit in the head with a frying pan. But her fans, myself included, lover her nonetheless.

With "Medulla", her latest studio album, she took music a step further: she used no instruments. Every sound on that album, every note, was created with voice and vocals. With each successive album, Bjork constantly changes her musical style. Bjork said about "Medulla": "I was going to call the album "Ink," because I wanted it to be like that black, 5,000 year-old blood that's inside us all; an ancient spirit that's passionate and dark, a spirit that survives."

I find that is even more apt here; it describes the feeling of "Drawing Restraint 9" to a tee. Indeed, some of the music even sounds musically similar to "Medulla," until you start to listen more closely to the more subtle differences. A few months ago I read that Bjork was going to do a soundtrack another film, I was ecstatic. The soundtrack was supposed to have a Japanese flavour to it; it would be different from anything Bjork had done before.

I was amazed and enchanted with her soundtrack (and her starring role which one her the Cannes Best Actress award) in "Dancer in the Dark"; so I wondered how different this soundtrack was going to sound. It's not a "Bjork Album", but a soundtrack to an art film. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly amazed! Words can't express how much I love this album. I think it may be the best thing Bjork has ever done (aside from "Medulla" of course).

Trust be told, at first I wasn't too sure what I was hearing. The album starts with the eerie "Gratitude" and continues with the eerily beautiful "Pearl." The entire album is more than music, it is really art in itself; but the two stand out tracks for me were "Storm" and "Holographic Entrypoint."

The album has a running theme of water flowing through out it and "Storm" fits this theme to a tee. It starts with Bjork's voice, dubbed to sound like lightning thundering in the clouds. Sounds follow that bring to mind rain, the sound of water hitting the ground.

"Holographic Entrypoint" is an odd song. At first, I looked at my stereo and thought: "What the hell is that?" I realized of course that it was a man chanting and singing in Japanese; this would make sense of course, since the film is set in Japan and the soundtrack has a Japanese flavour. I was put off by this track at first; I had never heard anyone sing in Japanese. But "Holographic Entrypoint" really brings Japan to life. In the mans powerful voice I can see Japan around me, as if I were there.

Keep in mind that this is the soundtrack to an art film, so it goes beyond any boundaries of anything Bjork has done before. If you are looking for poppy rocky music, you are going to be disappointed. If you don't like it on your first listen (I love Bjork and I wasn't quite sure after I listened to the album the first time round) take a second tour through. This is an album that you have to listen to more than once to get the full effect.

I loved all the songs on this album: "Ambergris March", "Bath" and "Hunter Vessel" were favorites. I could comment on every song on the album, but this review would be ten pages long. In short, it really kicks and I don't have enough words to express how amazing "The Music from Drawing Restraint 9" is, I don't have enough words to express it's beauty. All I can say is this:

Take a listen; you won't be sorry.



Jamieson Wolf


Originally published at:

Linear Reflections: The Review Site

This statement may sound strange considering this is a soundtrack for a film involving a sizable dose of Japanese history. But a closer look at this often stunning record reveals traces of several of Bjork's early sonic explorations and passions. She has stated on many occasions that she produced music for Icelandic film projects as a young adult. These soundtracks, according to her, were often comprised of percussive and vocal experimentations. This could easily describe a broad facet of the music of "Drawing Restraint 9".

Her voice is only audible in three of the disc's eleven tracks; this soundtrack is Bjork at her pure "researcher" best. She does an admirable job of weaving traditional Japanese and European instruments with subtle (and occasionally hardcore) electronic programming. With the exception of one track, "Holographic entrypoint", the music is not overtly "Japanese" sounding, but Bjork's research of traditional Japanese compositions is quietly integrated into the work as a whole.

This soundtrack includes delicate pieces for single instruments such as the sho, harp, celeste, and harpsichord ("Pearl", "Ambergris march", "Shimenawa", "Cetacea", "Antarctic return"), all of which have been arranged and performed beautifully. There are also two tracks ("Hunter vessel", "Vessel shimenawa") with stark orchestral arrangements for brass (trumpet, trombone) and oboe, which would have made Stanley Kubrick proud to put in one of his films.

Of these more instrumental pieces, "Pearl", which also features "Medulla"-collaborator, Tagaq, stands out as the most effortlessly gorgeous and intricate composition. It is incredible to see how many facets of Tagaq's throat-singing Bjork has been able to capture in her recent recordings. Though "Medulla"'s Tagaq showpiece, "Ancestors", has some truly heartwrenching passages (particularly the final minute of the track), the arrangement was not nearly as tight, consistent, and well-executed as it is here on "Pearl".

The most challenging piece for most listeners will undoubtedly be "Holographic entrypoint", described on Bjork's website as having been "sung in the intonation patterns and low, growling vocal techniques of traditional Japanese court entertainment." It is not a piece that I will listen to frequently, but it is interesting. More importantly, I think this track -- more than any of the others -- fits best within the context of the film rather than as a casual cd track.

The work throughout is superb. There are two tracks that particularly stand out, both of which feature Bjork's unparalleled voice: "Bath" and "Storm". Bjork's vocal has rarely sounded this good. These two tracks (each very different from the other) are a reminder that her voice -- especially when paired with minimal production that allows her voice it's proper prominence -- is a truly amazing instrument with highly flexible and expressive timbres.

"Bath" takes Bjork's vocal layering work on "Medulla" to another level altogether. Her voice on this track is like an opiate that surrounds and seduces the listener with every breath. Strangely enough, there seem to be traces of Middle Eastern scale progressions throughout the track. This piece is breathtaking; possibly Bjork's most exquisite all-vocal arrangement to date.

"Storm", on the other hand, hits you like a truck. The programming by Leila and arranging by Bjork are absolutely intense and physical. We don't see this Bjork often enough. This is the Bjork we have seen glimpses of with tracks like "Where is the Line", "Pluto", and "Army of Me", but her vocal is used to much greater effect here on "Storm". From the second her first line is sung, one instantly notices that this a Bjork we haven't heard much of. Her voice is raw, volatile, agitated, and sent chills down my spine. Perhaps the period of Bjork's career in which her vocals most closely resemble these is her work in the 1980s with Kukl. The last time I recall Bjork collaborating with Leila is on the live version of "Enjoy", which she did on her Post tour. This also brought us a more menacing Bjork, though not to the extent of which we see here on Storm. One can only hope that these two very gifted artists work on more projects together in the near future.

Other highlights include the intricate, textured percussion on "Ambergris march", the sho arrangements written by Bjork and performed by Mayumi Miyata, and the layered instrumentation of celeste, harp, digital programming, and keyboard, on "Gratitude" (though Will Oldham's vocal doesn't work quite as well).

Some Bjork fans are growing weary of her recent experimentations; some want the "Homogenic" or even "Post" Bjork back. I suppose one could say that there are many fans of 90s Bjork. As many people know, however, Bjork's recording career began in 1977. There probably isn't a single person who thinks every single Bjork project or song is great, but there are those who have enjoyed how far she has reached and how much she has developed and explored as an artist. When looking at Bjork's nearly 30-year musical career as a whole, one will find that this soundtrack is an admirable, stunning, and beautifully executed project that shows the artist reaching new heights as a composer, vocalist, and producer. As long as she's alive, I'm sure that Bjork will continue to produce compelling, beautiful, challenging music that will undoubtedly veer more toward a pop sensibility from time to time when it feels right to her.

Bjork's career seems to have taken a much more complex and abstract route since she released "Medúlla" in August 2004. This is evidently too much for some to handle and has resulted in a lot of her new material being greeted with hostility from fans of her more accessible early material from the Nineties. People have to understand that this is one serious artist who isn't going to compromise her music in order to sell more records. She's entirely her own woman and I respect her so much for that. Any true fan would realise this.

This summer saw the release of "Drawing Restraint 9," the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. This soundtrack actually preceded the movie by about three months. The movie was an art piece, sans dialogue, written and directed by Matthew Barney, Bjork's husband. She wrote and composed the entire soundtrack to fit in with the story of two lovers trapped on a Japanese whaling boat out on the sea, and it works beautifully. At times annoying and irritating, this album is truly a wonderful set of music featuring some songs that have already become classics in Bjork's already-heaving cannon.

The soundtrack opens with the beautiful "Gratitude." Will Oldham sings the main vocals on this song, although his voice is quite delicate and fractured. This is most likely the desired effect and is quite gracious. Harps, bells and chimes invoke this song and set up an atmosphere of warmth that I can only bask in. An adorable children's choir is introduced in the last minute to round the song out. "Pearl" is a very strange song and one that I would kindly forget, because it features that scary breathy vocal grunts that dominated "Ancestors" from Bjork's last album. Just imagine listening to this in the dark and it will scare you half to death! "Ambergris March" is a wonderful instrumental piece that uses a harpsichord, glockenspiel and crotales to great effect. The sound is light and airy, marching along to a joyous beat. It's pretty much just this all the way through, but I love it because it's so vast - almost panoramic.

"Bath" is an amazing song and one of only a few to feature vocals by Bjork. It's incredibly minimal and features eerie piano treatments that sound like water pooling into a room ever so slowly. Bjork's voice is very slow and downbeat, incredibly sparse and imperfect. There are cracks and whistles in her vocal lines, making it all the more interesting than a flat-out delivery. In the last minute her vocals rise and rise in a cacophony of sound that can only be described as whale noise. Incredibly beautiful and piercing, this is Bjork at that level of genius that just floors me. "Hunter Vessel" is another superb piece of instrumental music and runs for more than six minutes. Overall it's a powerful low-brass heavy piece that alternates between drawn-out sections that drape along, and sections of spiked stabbing where we can sense something more dramatic is happening. It's an incredibly atmospheric piece and never grows old, that's the best thing. "Shimenawa" is a short instrumental piece that features harp by Zeena Parkins and the sho. Although interesting, I find this piece a bit bland. "Vessel Shimenawa" is another short instrumental piece that lasts for just under two minutes. It's a reprise of the song before last, but more of an experiment because of the introduction of keyboards that sound fuller than the original version.

"Storm" is without a doubt the best song on the soundtrack, obviously because Bjork's voice features on it! It's obvious from the title that this song is about a terrifying storm out at sea, and Bjork makes it sound all the more haunting with her voice in the chorus. She manages to get it to rise and fall to a noise of something like "How-eeeeeeee!" It's so strong and visceral and contrasted beautifully by the computer programming. The sound of waves crashing and destruction at the end rounds out a great piece. "Holographic Entrypoint" is nearly ten minutes long and I just find it terribly hilarious. It sounds like a painful orgy at times! The vocal performance is most likely technically brilliant and it's very complex, but it's just not for me! "Cetacea" is a delicate piece with some really great vocals. They contrast the music very well, which consists of a harp, celeste and crotales. The soundtrack closes with "Antarctic Return." This is an instrumental piece in the vein of some of the other songs on the album, in that it features the startling music of the sho.

OVERALL GRADE: 8/10

Bjork is hands down my favourite artist, male of female, in any genre of music and probably always will be. She's the archetype! This is an average album, but a superb soundtrack, and thankfully it's not a proper studio album so those who really dislike it don't have to class it as one of Bjork's if they really don't want to. It doesn't stand beside albums such as "Vespertine," "Homogenic," "Post" or "Medúlla" because they are mighty masterpieces that I can listen to all the way through and take in as a complete experience. Having said that, I do feel that this soundtrack is more than just your average soundtrack. It has its own theme and the way the songs have been arranged and produced is undeniable brilliance.

I listened the the CD before seeing the film. Drawing Restraint 9 is a mix of a few "almost" pop-tunes - though abstract ones, a couple horn concerto type tracks and several instrumental pieces mixing traditional Japanese instruments (and singing) with electronic music.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this is a soundtrack. It is not a pop album...even much less so than Dancer in the Dark was. Much less. Bjork only sings on 3 tracks I believe. Wil Oldham sings the opening track, which is quite good, and another track features a traditional Japanese style of chant/singing. The remaining tracks are instrumental.

Most of the music works by itself. Between the more melodic tunes are sound collages that convey deep emotion and do well to paint audible pictures. This isn't up to everyone's taste however. And some people, who enjoy Bjork's more pop-oriented offerings, just won't find anything interesting here.

I personally find myself listening to about half the tracks on the album, finding them excellent, and then usually skipping a few of the tracks that require more attention from the listener. They all work in their own right...some of them just require you to be "in the mood" to listen.

Tracks like Gratitude, Bath, Storm and Cetacea are not too far off what you might expect on a "typical" Bjork album and are enjoyable anytime. Other tracks like Holographic Entrypoint featuring traditional Japanese singing or Pearl (which I believe features one of the vocalists from Medulla) are a bit more difficult to get in to. And while the two "Vessel" instrumentals, featuring only a horn section, are minimalistic and definitely sounding of soundtrack material, the instrumentals Ambergris March and Antarctic Return are absolutely beautiful.

Overall, while certainly not being the most accessible CD to come from Bjork, this soundtrack is quite enjoyable and contains several real gems that make the purchase worth while. If you are interested at all in the more experimental sides of music, you'll certainly enjoy this one.

A final, slightly off-topic note: I just saw this film (and accompanying works) at the San Francisco MOMA and was not impressed - especially when compared to the fabulous works of art all over the rest of the museum. The film could have been interesting if it were cut down to about an hour - despite some excellent cinematography. But at just over two hours, as with all of Barney's works on exhibit, it just felt tiring, unclever and contrived - quite a few people walked out of the film after the first hour. Bjork's soundtrack is much more intersting than the film itself - and the best parts of the film are often when Bjork's music is at the forefront. She just has a lot more talent than Barney.

I give this album 4 stars because whilst it may not be accessible or easily understood, the musical depth and painstaking effort in which Bjork has sunk into this album is crystal-clear.

In both the film and the soundtrack, East meets West. Traditional Japanese instruments and orchestration meets the western harp, Inuit throat-singing (although Tagaq's style has been argued to be a less traditional form of throat-singing, but I digress), and even modern electronica.

Two stand-out tracks highlight the complex musicality and far-out experimentation of Drawing Restraint 9.

On track 4 ("Bath"), a prepared piano tinkers lightly, but filled with acciaccturas (crush notes) and discordant chords. The atmosphere is one of mystery and tension. Bjork splices multiple layers of her singing against the background, all meshing together perfectly to create a delicate balance between space and sound. Yet, this is possibly the most claustrophobic piece of music Bjork has ever composed.

On track 8 ("Storm"), the listener is hauled aboard a ship that is being tortured by a digital storm brewed in the expert hands of Leila, a notable figure in avant-garde electronic music. The onslaught begins with Bjork's layered voices singing a short phrase over and over, with increasing volume and rapidity, until they morph into terrifying, vocodered voices. The accompanying electronica similarly goes awry, with a portentous bassline creeping into audibility. Bjork begins to sing - almost with sadistic pleasure - a most unsettling tune in an unidentifiable language. The song rises and ebbs in climatic spurts, cleverly dovetailed with electronic overruns and feedback. Bjork sounds raw at the start, but by the end of the song, she is howling like an operatic sorcerer summoning a storm. This is a Bjork that we have seldom or never heard before. The rawness of her energy floods the ears of the listener, enthralling and alarming him at the same time. On "Storm", Bjork is a Siren, luring the listeners onboard a sinking ship unto an untoward Fate. With helpless acquiescence, we indulge her.

This is not the Bjork from Debut or Post. If her previous album "Medulla" was fresh and challenging, then Bjork has finally created a work that is fascinatingly unfamiliar, yet frustratingly inaccessible.

In short, a daring work of Art.

Bjork has been creating exceptional music for at least twenty-three years, and yet, against all the odds, I am able to say that she's never been so important.

You will have read reviews of this album complaining about "Bjork's inexorable slide into the avant-garde", pining for the days when she made danceable pop music, and forgetting that even in the DEBUT days it only constituted a small corner of her sonic universe. The journalistic world hasn't learned that by demanding instantly accessible music and "star quality" at all times it is promoting bad mental health, and encouraging cultural homogenity, the ubiquity of vacuous teen and/or adult contemporary pop, the cult of empty celebrity exemplified by Big Brother, Fame Academy etc - everything that has made the past six years so difficult to live through. Forget all about file sharing and CD counterfeiting, the aforementioned phenomena are killing the music industry by killing interest in music. May I recommend purchase and study of this album as a form of resistance.

VESPERTINE marks the point where Bjork escaped all the established subcategories of popular music. She and her army of collaborators created a new genre. And, as good as that was, the all-vocal MEDULLA was a creative quantum leap - the most revolutionary, most important album of the decade.

But the soundtrack of DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 may prove even more important - it takes "Bjorkmusic" to yet another level. Here she transcends not only `pop' instrumentation but all established musical structures and processes - of pop and classical alike. Vocals, wordless as often as not, traditional instrumentation from various corners of the world, orchestral instrumentation and electronics are combined and used to delineate...sound patterns which cannot be passively observed, they must be engaged with. "It requires work - and does the work pay off? You bet!"
In fact, DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 should dispel any notions that Bjork is not the single most important creator of music in the past quarter-century.

I think linking Bjork with Donna Summer (that's with no S) is not only a terrible analogy between Bjork's earlier work and Donna Summer's work, but a complete discredit and contradiction to Bjork's evolving artistry and the other more appraising words written by Ryan Boudinot.
This album alone, even without the movie, is a mind-blowing, perfectly made step from Medulla; Bjork's music is an evolutionary process of an artist's obsession with sound. Family Tree (2002), a collaborative album, exposes this obsession literally and musically-- referring to an evolving, aging tree as a lens to view one's musical history. Drawing Restraint 9 is a continuation of Bjork's investigation of soundscape and the power of voice which was completely exposed on Medulla. She continues to acquire skill with different sounds and this album glorifies it. But what I feel is most rewarding for a true Bjork fan in terms of Bjork's never-ending knowledge of sound, and also for a new Bjork listener is the composer's overwhelmingly vivid music that has the ability to capture image through sound. Bjork is always evolving with every album she puts out next. I wouldn't agree with the notion that her next work will be similar to DR9 or that her next work will be casted by Matt Barney. This album is too good to think like that. She's moving toward the core of her musical authenticity-- excruciatingly from the gut.