Video: Björk: "Declare Independence" (live on "Later With Jools Holland")
Gearheads took notice when news broke that Björk's Coachella performance featured an unusual electro-acoustic instrument: the ReacTable. The Icelandic songstress's recent appearance on the BBC's "Later With Jools Holland" gives us all a closer look at the equipment (hint: it's the thing that looks like a table). Björk stomps and shouts through Volta's anti-colonial call to arms "Declare Independence" backed by a Polyphonic Spree-like assortment of brightly robed flag-wavers. Sure enough, there's the ReacTable, played using blocks and one's fingertips to create a virtual modular synthesizer. And there's Sir Paul McCartney-- no stranger to recording-technology innovations-- looking on with seeming curiosity.
[from Volta; out now on Atlantic]