posted by Ben Hogwood, with text from the press release

On 20th November, the Icelandic luminary Bjarki gets physical, with new longplayer The Body Works. Developed in close collaboration with his wife, the Latvian sculptor Brenda Jansone, the project brings together sound and sculpture, treating the human body not as subject matter, but as a medium.

The Body Works begins from a simple idea: sound does not end at the speaker, and music is something that is not only heard, but held, felt, and carried. By translating sound into physical form, the project creates an encounter that exists between listening and touch.

Rhythm is anticipated by muscle, voices affect breathing, and repetition changes our sense of time. Listening is already a physical act. Rather than treating the body as a subject represented by the music, The Body Works treats it as the place where the music happens; the physical and perceptual space through which sound is experienced.

Primarily consisting of left-leaning club music, the LP moves between trap-tinged tech funk, sweaty nocturnal throb, bottom heavy breaks, seedy cowbell acid, pumping techno workouts, doting hi NRG, cosmic homoerotica, and electronic disco. Interspersed and laced atop are more exploratory approaches to sound. Synthesis, field recordings, voices, electroacoustic and musique concrète techniques, plus a dose of offbeat humour are all treated equally as compositional material.

The record travels through ordinary human actions and situations – partying, sleeping, travelling, cooking, flirting, drinking, dancing and listening. These are not presented simply as themes; they become compositional material through which sound, attention, movement and the body interact. “A lot of the record is just weird normal things happening around me. Sleeping, travelling, flirting, drinking water, trying to kill a fly. The more attention you give these things, the stranger they become”, comments Bjarki.

The physical form of The Body Works begins with Bjarki’s own body. Brenda takes moulds directly from his chest and back and develops them into silicone sculptures – a hyperrealistic double of his skin. Track titles and album information are tattooed directly into the silicone surface, on his back. Hand-implanted hair – including strands of Bjarki’s own body hair – spells out the record’s title across the sculpture, on his chest.

The process moves from body casting through sculpting, making further moulds, silicone toning and pouring to painting, toning and perming real human hair, implanting the hair, tattooing, and finally photographing and digitising the finished covers. These sculptures then become the album’s artwork. The work plays deliberately between realism and fiction: a real cast of a real body, but through that process it becomes something the body itself could never be – spelling out words in hair, carrying tattooed track listings, existing as an art object rather than a person.

A body – even a silicone replica one – triggers something in us that flat images and abstract objects don’t. We recognise skin, hair, the small imperfections of a familiar surface, almost instinctively, and it produces a response that’s closer to encountering a person than viewing an artwork. That recognition is exactly what The Body Works is built on. And because the work is physical, it can be touched as well as seen.

Alongside the vinyl and digital release of The Body Works, a limited number of silicone USB fingers will also be released – each cast directly from Bjarki’s own hand, the middle finger, and made individually by Brenda. The idea connects the physical body with the format carrying the music. Rather than a USB drive shaped like anything else, the body itself becomes the object that holds and delivers the album — the format is no longer neutral packaging, but part of “the body.” Each finger contains the complete project: the digital album, bonus tracks, and visual material documenting how the LP was made. The finger refers to the hands-on, tactile process of making and interacting with music. It was a hand that made this album – and now, holding the finger, the listener holds a part of the same hand that made it.

For Bjarki, The Body Works is sound built to be felt, not just heard. For Brenda, it’s a body built to be worn, not just seen. Together, they’ve made an album you can listen to and hold.

Published post no.3,067 – Tuesday 3 November 2026