One of Björk's greatest assets is her impeccable taste. Like, sure, she's brilliant in her own right, but she also knows how to pick her collaborators—from her tracks with Tricky and Timbaland to her starring role in Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. Recently, she's been snapping up young, hungry artists from the bleeding edge of experimental dance music—Lotic, Juliana Huxtable, Arca, for instance—and inviting them to bask in the warm glow of her singular genius. The resulting partnerships not only keep her own music fresh, but have brought a younger generation of artists to prominence.Her newest disciple is London-based video artist Jesse Kanda, who you may recognize from Arca's nightmarish music videos and album art. This week Björk and Kanda dropped the video for "Mouth Mantra," off of her newest album Vulnicura, and the majority of it is filmed inside Björk's mouth (nice teeth Björk!). Like Kanda's other video works, it is both beautiful and grotesque, with a distinct sense of body dysmorphia and a queasy animation style. "If there's one thing I'd like for people to take away from this video, it's the power of vulnerability," he told Dazed. What's more vulnerable than showing everybody the sticky pink insides of your mouth hole?Making the video was apparently no easy feat from a technical standpoint. "It was brave for [Kanda] to take it on and i feel spoiled having witnessed him grow, making high-tech mouth models and inventing cameras all to match a little therapeutic song about the throat," Björk said. Soon you'll be able to watch it in 360 degrees via Björk's virtual-reality app, because Björk.Max wishes Björk would pick him next, she can find him on Twitter - @maxpearl
Advertisement