Volta is the sixth studio album by the Icelandic singer Björk, released on 1 May 2007 by One Little Indian. It features contributions from multiple artists, including Björk's longtime collaborator Mark Bell and the producers Timbaland and Danja.
The album received positive reviews and is Björk's first and only album to reach the top 10 on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number nine. Volta spent nine weeks at number one on the US Top Electronic Albums chart and in the first three months of release sold over half a million copies worldwide. In the United Kingdom it was certified silver. The lead single, "Earth Intruders", reached number 67 on the UK Official Download Chart, and number 78 on the main UK Singles Chart, while the remix EP later charted on its own at number 150. In the United States, the song became her second entry on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 84. Volta was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.
The album was re-released in June 2009 in expanded versions, under the name Voltaïc. There were five separate versions of related material from Volta. The full version included a CD of 11 songs performed live at the Olympic Studios, a DVD of live performances in Paris and Reykjavík during the Volta tour, a second DVD of the Volta music videos, videos of the top ten runners-up from the "Innocence" video contest, and a second CD of remixes from Voltas singles. The official worldwide release date of all editions was 23 June 2009. The artwork was nominated for an award at the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Awards. It was a collaboration between the German fashion designer Bernhard Willhelm and British fashion photographer Nick Knight. Björk went on the 18-month The Volta tour, her first tour in four years.
Background and development In an interview with Pitchfork, Björk talked for the first time about the theme of the album.
In the run-up to the release of the album, many media outlets were lauding the album as a return to the supposed "pop" sound of Björk's earlier solo albums Debut and Post. This was due in part to the inclusion of three tracks co-produced by record producer Timbaland; in interviews before the album's release he had stated that seven of the tracks he worked with Björk on would end up on her album, seemingly indicating that the decision was made to choose other tracks than the Timbaland-produced ones, or else other versions of the tracks. At the time Timbaland had also had recent hits with Justin Timberlake ("SexyBack") and Nelly Furtado ("Promiscuous" and "Maneater"), with him and his protégé Danja being responsible for some of the biggest hits of 2006 and 2007. As the news of Björk's having worked with Timbaland spread across the Internet, many websites started speculating on whether the album would be "hip hop" flavoured; in one interview Timbaland himself referred to the upcoming album as "hip hop".
Pitchfork, in their exclusive first interview with Björk for the promotion of Volta, quoted Björk as saying that the new album would be "full-bodied and really up". This was taken by fans as further evidence of a more "pop" album (as compared to her more recent output). A week later, the head of One Little Indian Records, Derek Birkett, heralded the new album as "the most commercial thing she's ever done" in Music Week.
The first mention of "Earth Intruders" as a song title was made on All Access on 10 March 2007, and was later confirmed as the lead single through an article in The Guardian on 11 March 2007. On 26 March 2007, a distorted sample of the song was uploaded to YouTube as part of the viral marketing campaign for the Volta album. A fifteen-second sample of the track then appeared on the Rhino Records online ringtone website on 1 April 2007. The purchased ringtone featured a different clip (with different lyrics) to the one used in the online preview on the site; both audio samples were subsequently spread across online music forums. On 3 April 2007, it was reported that the Björk section of the Rhino Records online ringtone store had been removed. After internet radio station WOXY played the song on 6 April 2007, the song was made widely available across file-sharing networks.
Björk has since stated that the album was not "hip hop" and that she had not intended for it to be so. She said that she did not want to work with Timbaland as a "hitmaker", or because of his affiliation to a particular genre, but wanted to work with him solely as a musician in his own right. Björk has also explained that when the two of them were together, Timbaland asked Björk what kind of music she would like to make with him, for example a hit song or "something weird", and Björk replied that she was interested in finding out where they "overlapped" musically, and they would go from there. The result was a tribal sound, because they were both interested in it. She has also said that One Little Indian "always feel that 'my latest release is the most commercial to date'", and that she feels Volta is no more commercial than any of her previous work.
Recording and production
A wide array of artists collaborated with Björk on material for the album. Björk first contacted Timbaland about a possible collaboration in December 2005. The first session took place in February 2006 in Studio 4 at Manhattan Center Studios in New York City,Radio interview with Timbaland on Tim Westwood show on BBC Radio 1, 05 July 2007. soon after Björk had visited Banda Aceh in February 2006 to view some of UNICEF's work with the children who were affected by the tsunami – in May 2005 Björk released the charity album Army of Me: Remixes and Covers to help UNICEF's work in the south east Asian region. Björk's experiences in Indonesia led to the track "Earth Intruders", originally a ten-minute song which Björk then subsequently edited for the album version. Björk collaborated on seven tracks in total with Timbaland. Timbaland had stated that he intended one of the tracks he did with Björk to appear on his new solo album but this did not materialise.TV interview with Timbaland on MTV Live on MTV Canada, 31 January 2007. Video . The lead-off single from Volta, "Earth Intruders", is co-produced by Timbaland, as well as the second single "Innocence"; the album track "Hope" is co-written by Timbaland. Björk has stated that the other Timbaland tracks are unlikely to ever be released.
Anohni, lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons, appears on the album for two duets—"The Dull Flame of Desire" and "My Juvenile". The collaborative sessions took place in Jamaica. Björk has also put together her own fourteen-piece brass section of female Icelandic musicians who play on three tracks on the album. Its members comprise Sylvía Hlynsdóttir, Ása Berglind Hjálmarsdóttir, Dröfn Helgadóttir, Valdís Þorkelsdóttir, Karen J. Sturlaugsson, Björk Níelsdóttir, Sigrún Jónsdóttir, Harpa Jóhannsdóttir, Vilborg Jónsdóttir, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir, Erla Axelsdóttir, Særún Pálmadóttir, Lilja Valdimarsdóttir and Brynja Guðmundsdóttir.
Other collaborators include American drummers Brian Chippendale and Chris Corsano, Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté, Congolese ensemble Konono N°1, Chinese pipa player Min Xiao-Fen, British electronic musician Mark Bell, Icelandic lyricist Sjón programmer and engineer Damian Taylor and Estonian producer Michael Pärt.
Composition Volta was labeled as an electropop, experimental, world and avant-pop album. Stylistically, it's a distinctive and eclectic album that, while incorporating the efforts of many collaborators, touches on forms of music like brass music, Chinese folk music, percussive tribal music, electro, Malian folk music, ambient and industrial music. Björk opted to incorporate plucked stringed instruments "like the ocean ... but more dirty sounding than when [she] did, for example, Vespertine", and thematically, she intended the album to be "going for something more pagan".
She used brass instrumentation for almost every song on the album, and most of the instrumentation is courtesy of an all-female Icelandic brass ensemble. However, Björk also used samples from her previous project, The Music From Drawing Restraint 9, as in the case of "Vertebræ by Vertebræ" and "Declare Independence", because she was interested to find out how the sounds from that soundtrack album would sound in a less ambient or atmospheric soundscape. For the song "Pneumonia", also featuring an independent horn section, she drew inspiration from her own bout with the disease, and an emotionally moving viewing of the film Pan's Labyrinth.
"Earth Intruders" incorporates the efforts of multiple collaborators, including Timbaland and Danja's tribal production, Congolese ensemble Konono N°1 who play electric likembés, and experimental American percussionist Chris Corsano, as well as a continuously playing, "squelching" unified marching sound. "Declare Independence" was originally an instrumental track by British musician and frequent musical collaborator Mark Bell, performed at his live shows as early as November 2006. Björk later added her vocals and a brass arrangement on top. It features noisy and distorted industrial techno-style production, similar to "Pluto" on Björk's 1997 album Homogenic, and has been compared to Atari Teenage Riot because of its stylistic nods to punk. The lyrics are dedicated to the Faroe Islands and Greenland.Útvarp Føroya (Faroese Radio): Íslendska Björk ognar Føroyum og Grønlandi nýggjan sang (The Icelandic Björk dedicates new song to the Faroes and Greenland) , April 10, 2007 (Faroese)Iceland Review: Björk in concert in Iceland , April 10, 2007
Björk has described "Wanderlust" as being the heart of Volta, and has said that the song is about "the state of looking for something and almost knowing you're never going to find it" and that it makes fun of her hunger for "something new".björk : about It was released in the UK on 30 June. UK release on 30th June As Björk said in an interview for Harp, "Things go in circles. Wanderlust, for example, is a sort of continuity of 'Hyperballad'."
Release and album title Björk has since said that "Initially after its release, I felt Volta was just OK", and that she regards the tour versions of the songs as better than those found on the album – in this sense the live recordings released on Voltaïc are to be seen as the true version of the album. The track titles were confirmed in a 14 March 2007 article on MTV, and confirmed in a post on sprk.nl on 20 March 2007. The unreleased Volta track, "Trance", appears in the short film dedicated to Alexander McQueen, "To Lee, With Love, Nick", directed by Nick Knight. The track entitled "Vertebræ by Vertebræ" was retitled from the previous, "Energy".
Björk said about the title of the album:
The full album was accidentally made available on the UK iTunes Store at midnight on 23 April 2007 for a total of six hours, two weeks before the album's official release date. This led to the album being leaked online the following day.
Release formats Volta was released in three editions in the UK: a digipak CD edition; a limited edition CD-DVD edition (featuring surround audio in DTS); and a double vinyl edition. The UK and Japanese editions of the album feature the Mark Bell Mix of "I See Who You Are" as a bonus track. Later editions were released in regular jewelcases.