No, it's not a photo of Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen in his new job as a dairy farmer. Björk is back, and this is the sleeve artwork of her forthcoming album — a soundtrack she composed for partner Matthew Barney's new film, Drawing Restraint 9.
Evidently, this shot isn't of Björk but she does star in the film, along with Barney. She claimed she was so traumatised by working on Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark (she bit of a piece of his shirt before walking off set) that she'd never make another film. Frankly, Dancer sounds a breeze compared to this job.
She and Barney play visitors aboard a Japanese whaling ship carrying a shape-shifting sculpture of liquid vaseline. Barney and Björk, dressed for reasons best know to themselves in "mammal fur costumes", are taking part in a tea ceremony below deck when it's rudely interrupted by a flood of said gunk from above. They do what anyone would do in such circumstances: start breathing through blowholes on the back on their necks and cut off each other's feet to reveal whale tails.
It sounds like exactly the sort of scenario you'd expect from Barney, creator of the enigmatic Cremaster cycle. For her part, Björk has supplied a typically ear-tweaking accompaniment. The publicity blurb refers to "boiling cauldrons of noise" and "wildly distorted howls". It's not exaggerating. Suffice to say, this release probably sits at the, er, less commercial, hardcore-fans-only end of her output.
