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As the release date Björk’s eight full-length approaches, the Icelandic star publishes even more of the musical material till it’s fresh. The main advantages of this strategy are two: listeners get familiar with almost half of the album before it drops into stores and simultaneously allows Björk to unveil much of her expansive project involving iPad apps, essays, concerts, lectures and visuals, all of which are already in happening. It’s also impressive how this artist never disappoints at coming with another inventive form of marketing and selling her art. The same must be said about her gift of creating high-concept music which is both smart and easy-going. Such equilibrium between straightforwardness and multi-layered complexity is adorable. Still, without giving away decent and original music, this blog wouldn’t be so excited about all the steps that lead to the full release of Biophilia.

As the opening song of the album, Moon sets not only the tone, but also the overall atmosphere and spirit of this fifty-minutes long record. Björk does this in her most gentle and tender way. The song procedes through several cycles which are similar in their austere beauty and harp-led softness, but different in the urge and sincerity of lyrics which grow from universal to highly personal. While she begins with a creation of human being in the first part, second verse after the refrain comes unexpectedly sincere. “Best way to start-a-new is to fail miserably / Fail at loving and fail at giving.” It comes as a nice surprise that Björk is not occupied by external environment, politics and apps only, but looks also insight of human soul. That is summoned in the final verse saying: “To risk all is the end all and the beginning all,” which might be one of Biophilia’s most sound messages. Dismiss fear, throw away constraints and listen to your desires.

Similarly to the intimate atmosphere of music consisting only of harp and singer’s voice, the video is soft, steady, almost static. It’s an uncut footage of Björk singing the song somewhere in the universe, far away from civilization, but close to the empty moon which is going through all its phases. Much is happening in the singer’s face: she typically expresses her emotions through mimics and the vast dynamic range of her voice which add a small bit of action to this moody video which puts together many visual concepts which Biophilia portrays. It’s static in the visuals, but nicely dynamic in the delivery.