The eclectic and relentlessly creative Björk has just released the world’s first “app album”. The Icelandic singer has come up with a novel way to use modern technology to add numerous layers to a music CD. Her new album, Biophilia, is certainly an entirely novel and creative landmark in the music industry – whether it will change it remains to be seen.

Set of ten apps contained within a mother app

Bjork: the first fully interactive CD for the app age Image from video Moon

Biophilia was partly made on an iPad and in addition to the CD, is being released as a set of apps – one for each track so as to immerse listeners in a completely interactive experience. The ten apps are contained within a “mother app.”

They have been developed by a group of engineers, scientists, writers and artists (including Sir David Attenborough). The app designer, filmmaker and media artist Scott Snibbe coordinated the creation of the app designs.

Redefinition of a music album?

It is undoubtedly revolutionary. The whole notion of a music album had been redesigned. The apps are quite aesthetically remarkable – you can see the creativity in the images set out in Wired. They are filled with links to reading materials and all sorts of interactive features.

The experience of interacting with the apps is very complete if you take the time to get totally involved. But in many ways this is something to be wary of. Whilst it is all very clever, artistic and in some cases educational, it does all to some extent detract from the very essence of the core artistic endeavour – the music.

For the singer has certainly challenged herself and produced an album of immense scope.

Thunderbolt is about the “dangerous gifts” of elemental nature with a baseline of an electrical discharge leaving a Tesla coil which was specially adapted to add the musical sound effects. It is a meditation on the lightening flash of creative inspiration.

Cosmogony reflects on cosmological forces and Mutual Core depicts the creative force of volcanic energy.

Sweeping musical canvass

There is much to be admired and enjoyed in this musical odyssey through science, paganism, nature, love and technology. It is a sweeping canvass with an idiosyncatic and creative force sweeping through it. Two instruments were even created for the album!

It is eclectic, in true Björk fashion.

But part of what is so wonderful about music is the way in which one’s imagination can run wild. If you were to painstakingly go through every feature of this multi-media album as you listened to the music for the first time, there would be precious little opportunity for trusting in your own experience.

This is not to belittle what is clearly a remarkable creative achievement, but rather to stress that there is a great deal of wonderful new music to be experienced here.

So enjoy the multi-media overlay by all means, and there is much to be enjoyed in the apps, the websites, the animations, the interactive games and the educational workshops. The CD’s Manual Edition even comes with its own 48-page cloth-bound hardback book, and the CD’s Ultimate Edition is complete with silk screened, lacquered oak case, and ten chrome-plated tuning forks representing the “tone” of each track.

But this is a plea to permit yourself to be able to strip all of that away and let the music speak for itself, and allow your imagination to soar with a truly extraordinary album.

Challenges for the music industry

With the music industry on its knees with CD sales declining and music freely being downloaded and shared, creative artists are looking for alternatives. Björk’s model is an interesting development certainly, but for those that do not feel the need to see a music video more than once it is certainly not the salvation of the music industry.

The Kaiser Chiefs came up with an interesting DIY album concept for The Future Is Medieval back in June, which attempted to engage the audience and to encourage people to actually pay for the music. The DIY album enabled fans to create their own album of 10 tracks from a choice of 20 and to be able sell their own version and keep a share of the proceeds.

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