Listening to Björk’s new album Utopia on headphones approximates the feeling of a flock of birds perched on your shoulders screaming in your ears in unison as they pierce your tender flesh with their talons. That’s to say there are a lot of flutes, and ya know what? It kinda hurts if you aren’t completely invested in the art of flute (and who among us ism besides Björk?). Björk commissioned 12 flautists (all female) and had them in her cabin on Fridays where they rehearsed for something like 50 or 60 days, according to a recent Guardian profile. So that’s nice for them, I guess.
Have you ever heard of so many flutes being in one place before? Me neither! It’s so many, particularly if you aren’t a fan of whistlin’ wind between your ears, that when I saw this Fader headline, I cackled because it reads like something on The Onion:
Coke says it will make a second version of Coke with more sugar. The makers of fidget spinners say they will make a second version of fidget spinners with more spinning. Luca Guadagnino says he will make a second version of Call Me By Your Name with more gay sex he’ll consciously obscure.
But anyway, it’s true, according to an interview with Beats 1, in which Björk revealed:
I want to take a little break and then maybe in spring arrive with an angle of the live album. I think there were a few things I didn’t completely explore, like more with soloists and mysterious kind of flute playing. And I’m gonna be rehearsing with the flute players here in Iceland. I just want it to happen organically in early spring. We have some additional flute songs and some different kind of angles.
God help us.