Review: Bjork, Bebel Gilberto

Review: Bjork, Bebel Gilberto

Bjork 'Volta': Aidin Vaziri | Björk has made entire songs out of shuffling playing cards. Where normal pop stars use strings, she uses an Inuit choir (and possibly their dog leashes). She is so experimental that the only instruments on her previous proper album were body parts (mouths mostly, not like when you cup your armpit with your hand and try to make a farting noise). By those standards, the Icelandic singer's sixth full-length studio disc is quite normal. Three songs even feature Timbaland, the hip-hop producer behind the current hit streaks by Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. But it's unlikely anyone will confuse the pointless industrial clangor of "Earth Intruders" or the fluttering National Geographic rhythms of "Hope" as an attempt to bring sexy back, forward or any other way -- especially when on the latter Björk sings, "What's the lesser of two evils/ If a suicide bomber made to look pregnant manages to kill her target or not?" No, "Volta" is a teeth-gnashingly difficult album to penetrate all around, rife with intentionally harsh sound effects, ugly melodies and inane lyrics. With "Declare Independence," Björk somehow even manages to combine all of the above. And as much as it's hard to fault the excess of ideas and unbendable desire to tear up convention, it kind of sucks that just a handful of tracks -- including the towering "Wanderlust" and a pair of ghostly duets with New York singer Antony Hegarty -- make you consider coming back for more. Is she trying too hard -- or maybe just not hard enough?

Bebel Gilberto 'Momento': Aidin Vaziri | Bebel Gilberto is a freak. She's that rare offspring of pop royalty that has actually managed to pretty up the family business rather than take it down, a doubly impossible feat when you consider that in Brazil her father, João Gilberto ("The Girl From Impanema"), is known simply as "the legend." On "Momento," her latest solo release, Bebel doesn't stray too far from the soothing bossa nova rhythms and sleek electronic flourishes on which she's built her own name, which is just fine. She's got a lovely voice, knows the right collaborators and doesn't really need to do much to make a very good album. That she manages to rejuvenate Cole Porter's dusty old "Night and Day" with a gentle Latin sway only makes it that much better.