Bjork released her video for her song “Black Lake” from her ninth studio album Vulnicura last Thursday, another piece of the art puzzle her career has been over her past nine albums.
After a heartbreaking journey from 2012 to now, the striking Icelandic star has returned with an immense ten minute sequence for “Black Lake.” An intimate and bare display, “Black Lake” creates an atmosphere of nature, suffering and beauty.
To document the successful and artful journey Bjork has been on, the Museum of Modern Art sought to encapsulate Bjork’s career as an artist this year with a multimedia display of Bjork’s retrospective. Part of “Black Lake” was included in the exhibit previously and now another part has now officially been released.
Directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, the video opens with Bjork kneeling inside of a cave. Bjork is shown in a much simpler costume and in much simpler surroundings than what we’re used to seeing from her music videos. Stripped of the usual additives and abstract images that give her videos their usual visual statement, this Bjork is shown almost as a cavewoman exploring a baron, dirty world with not much else going on around her.
Since the video is ten minutes long, it feels like the slow build drags a bit. That is until the video, quite literally, explodes with none other than neon blue lava. Bjork, covered in dirt, continues the rest of the video exploring the nature around her and stopping dramatically to show the suffering the song so vividly explains.
As for the costume she started the video in, she doesn’t disappoint when the video shifts from the rocky terrain to a green field with mountains in the distance, wearing a black coat covered in what appears to be shimmering, translucent, orange and white wings. As the video begins to close, Bjork is shown floating with the wings looking almost like flames as they float away from her body. The last few minutes of the video are of Bjork walking away.
Even though she is known for her complexity, Bjork doesn’t disappoint with the simplicity, or simplicity in Bjork terms, of “Black Lake.” Recently with her videos for the songs off of her new album, including “Stonemilker” and “Family,” rebirth and nature have been the driving factors for the videos. Even with the natural viewpoint, the creativity behind each video makes each one unique.
Whether her music weaves a tangled web about the universe or simply captures the earth being removed out from under your feet during a difficult breakup, Bjork delivers every time.
You can read more about “Black Lake” from this Rolling Stones article posted earlier today.
You can watch the video for “Black Lake” below:
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