Search - Bjork :: Gling-Glo

My favorite Bjork album

Steven Woodard | Beaumont, TX, USA | 07/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I especially love Luktar-Gvendur, Kata Rokkar and I Dansi. I think Kata Rokkar may be the best song Bjork has ever recorded (that's in my humble opinion of course).



It's jazz... Upbeat at times, slow and smooth at others. Except it has Bjork's voice on it. She's not the jazziest of vocalists, but she still adds 150% to the beauty of the music. It's soo much different from the rest of her other work, which may mean that even if you don't like her solo-electronica stuff you may like this. However, if you're reading this you probably already like Bjork, thus I'm wasting all of this useful space. I'll stop now."

It is what it is...

Mucosa | Seattle, WA USA | 09/18/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In response to the review by Laura Laureate, check the date this album was recorded...1990! You can hardly say success had gone to Bjork's head...she was still in the Sugarcubes and relatively unknown back then. She tried something different and then moved on. That being said, it is only essential for true Bjork fans."

Hola Iceland! : Land of Eskimos, Sea Lions, and now... JAZZ!

Cabir Davis | 01/30/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Gling Glo" remains Bjorks' only big-band Icelandic album. Its also the only Icelandic jazz album I own. However, the genre intrigued me so much, that Amazon searches for variations on the same theme led me to some interesting artists - I'm especially glad I found Irelands' Altan, and Finlands' Varrtina based on the recommendations this album threw up.



As you perhaps know already, "Gling Glo" is unusual even in Bjorks' own catalog because of the strange marriage between jazz and Icelandic. The combination does not always work very well, I'm afraid. Indeed, from track 4 onward, every song seemed to melt into the other as they sounded virtually indistinguishable. Granted, I don't speak the language, but how many people visiting this page do? Bjork herself would later say that this entire album was a fun, one-off experiment, and in that context it might work for people who can sit through the entire thing.



For its part, its cute. The title track is the best one. Reading the English translation of the lyrics, its evident that its about a young woman who's waiting for her man. The `Gling Glo' refers to the ticking of a clock as she waits for him. Its an especially happy song, because the young man ends up proposing, and she says Yes. Its this sort of happy sentiment that permeates the entire recording - this is a happy, exuberant album that has its' heart in the right place, and very little can be said against it.



There are two English language songs here (preceded by 14 Icelandic tracks). Bjorks' covers of "Ruby Baby" and "I Can't Help loving that Man" are curious little pieces, but definitely a welcome addition. I guess they added these on to make the album more `internationally appealing', but I'm not complaining. To me, Bjork's greatest album is her debut album from the 1970s (no official release yet), but Gling Glo was a nice little side project that hasn't aged at all - the melodies, the production - they all seem fresh and novel even after all this time.



Four Stars. An exciting, adventurous album.

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