Music video: Björk - Family


Ever since the 2 month premature leak of her 9th studio album Vulnicura Björk has been the gift that keeps giving. Officially dropping the album on iTunes way ahead of its planned release date, announcing gigs, having a career retrospective be placed in MoMA and now a steady drip feed of visuals.

The first official music video from Vulnicura is actually "Lionsong". But Björk is never one to skimp on the visual elements of her music and has therefore filmed visuals to other songs, not all of which will be singles. The purpose of these videos isn't solely to promote the songs as singles, but for Björk to create tangible points of contact to the world of which she has created, which her fans to physically interact with. Her visual for "Black lake" is part of an installation at MoMA, whilst her visual for "Stonemilker" was shot for the use of the virtual reality headset Oculus rift.

Despite the visual experiences for "Family", "Stonemilker" and "Black lake" being spread across different mediums, they are all very connected. "Family" is not a full music video and is available for all to see on YouTube and serves as the connecting thread between "Black lake" and "Stonemilker" - something which the teaser of "Black lake" and the teaser shot of Bjork shooting "Stonemilker" both allude to when viewed in the context of "Family".

Ever since Björk explored the use of apps for Biophilia, it seems that these extensions of her music into other little experiences will be how she now presents her albums. It's a great forward thinking approach, which not only allows her albums to exist outside of the standard cycles, but allows her fans to take her albums in forms other than a CD or mp3's. Everything that Björk is doing with the album now and has done with Biophilia goes to show that an album can be more than just CD's, mp3's and a tour.

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