CityLife

Bjork: Biophilia

Bjork
Campfield Market
June 30, 2011

Whether you’re Damon Albarn, Johnny Vegas or Victoria Wood, you must be feeling a little nervous opening your new commission for Manchester International Festival in the shadow of an extraordinary concert by Bjork.

On the corner of Liverpool Road and Deansgate, behind a plethora of restaurants, is Campfield Market, currently home to Bjork’s most ambitious multi-media show of her career.

Sitting on a plot occupied mainly by the Museum of Science & Industry, the venue was briefly used by the Royal Exchange Theatre in the 1990s after the IRA bomb.
 
Amid the shaded grandeur of this Victorian greenhouse stands Bjork in an ostentatious orange wig, her temporary stage set right in the centre of the venue.

Around her, a collection of fascinating home-made instruments outline the stage. A 10ft Sharpsichord sits in one corner in the dramatic shadow of an equally tall multi-pendulum device; in the other is a pipe organ and celeste.

They’re shown off from the opening song, Thunderbolt, which uses a caged singing Tesla coil to play the bassline. A drummer and gadgets guru occupy the other corners of the stage, but it’s the 24-piece female choir that are Bjork’s main musical foil for these shows.

Since this is a showcase for Biophilia, the set contains the entire album. And it’s given a gentle lift-off with Moon and new single Crystalline.

Above Bjork’s head is a circle of screens that explode with images and illustrations like visual thought bubbles about plants, planets and retro videogames.

In a set woven with delicately reworked favourites, including Hidden Place, Isobel and All Is Full Of Love, it’s actually the new songs that sound most captivating and, in the case of Cosmogeny, most stirring.

Rightly, she saves solving the mystery of what the pendulum gateway is for until the final song, when she stands between the swinging arms for Solstice.

One Day, played a capella with a drummer on a melodic percussion instrument called the hang, is an elegant final showcase for Bjork’s distinctive voice, but there’s nothing that quite sums up the spirit of the show – and of MIF itself – quite like Declare Independence. The bar is set.

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