"Crystalline" | ||||||||
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Single by Björk | ||||||||
from the album Biophilia | ||||||||
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Released | June 28, 2011 | |||||||
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Length | 5:05 | |||||||
Label | One Little Indian | |||||||
Writer(s) | Björk | |||||||
Producer(s) |
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Björk singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Crystalline" is a song by Icelandic artist Björk, released as the lead single from her eighth album Biophilia. The song was released as a single on June 28, 2011 accompanied by an iPad app developed exclusively for the song. It was afterward released as part of The Crystalline Series alongside the second single from the album, "Cosmogony".
In March 2011 it was announced that Björk would play at the Manchester International Festival with a new concept of concert. Several songs from the album debuted during a series of performances at the festival between June 27 and July 16, 2011. Björk called the performances a "meditation on the relationship between music, nature and technology". "Special" instruments were designed and constructed specifically for these concerts.
The release of the song was preceded by three teasers: on the first one, entitled "Road to Crystalline" we can see Björk driving her Hummer through a road in Iceland while playing an excerpt of a demo version of the song; on the second one, we could see one of the new instruments developed for the Manchester performances, that also plays on the track: the 'Gameleste', a celesta which was modified by Icelandic Organ builder, Björgvin Tómasson and British Cymbalsmith and Gong maker, Matt Nolan so that it sounds like Gamelan and could be played remotely by MIDI or even an iPad; and on the third teaser, recording sessions of the remix featuring Omar Souleyman were shown. The song leaked onto the internet on June 25, 2011. On June 28, 2011, UK producers 16bit confirmed via Facebook that they produced the song.
"Crystalline" is a mostly electronic song, featuring a continuous 'gameleste' base and electronic beats and rhythm. After the bridge, the song features a gameleste solo, and consequently ends with an uproarious drum and bass section which uses the Amen break. The soundscape seems to be a hybrid of the musical stylings of her previous albums Post and Vespertine, with undercurrent percussive elements from her album Homogenic.