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Björk Is Back!

Photo: Roger Kisby/2009 Getty Images
Photo: Roger Kisby/2009 Getty Images

Last year, Björk teamed up with the Dirty Projectors to release an EP about whale watching. This year, she’s going bigger: Biophilia, out September 26, was partially recorded on an iPad, will be released as a series of apps, and is seeing its premiere with a multimedia Manchester International Festival residency that features, among other elements, “a bespoke pipe organ that accepts digital information and a pendulum that harnesses the earth’s gravitational pull to create musical patterns.” That residency kicks off today; over the weekend, possibly to mark the occasion, Björk released Biophilia’s first single. Luckily, at the head of all that confusing grand ambition is still some classic Björk — “Crystalline” picks up where 2007’s Volta left off, with impulsive trip-hop breakbeats, uneven phrasings, general claustrophobia, and awesome theatrical wailing about “internal nebulae” and the like. Also: Are the last 30 seconds of this thing reminding anyone else of the Powerpuff Girls theme song?

Björk Is Back!