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Dom Robinson reviews

Bjork: All Is Full Of Love

DVD single

Distributed by

Cat.no: 242TP7DVD
Cert: E
Running time: 4:25 plus audio tracks
Released 7th June 1999
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 0, 2 (UK PAL)
Chapters: 3
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
Languages: English
Lyrics: None
Widescreen: 1.66:1 (15:9)
16:9-enhanced: No
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £6.99
Extras : Scene index

Director:

Chris Cunningham

All Is Full Of Love is the first fully-eligible chart single to be released on DVD, coming four weeks after Phuture 2000 by Carl Cox which fell outside of the BPI's latest rules that a single must have no more than three tracks and a total running time of twenty minutes in order to get a chart placing.

The first track is the video itself - a science-fiction love story that stars Bjork as a robot and is directed by Chris Cunningham who has previously worked with Madonna and Portishead, as well as turning the Aphex Twin into a woman. Chris worked day and night for weeks, painstakingly turning Bjork into a robot, but claims it was worth it and that it's his best video to date. It's certainly very impressive and you'll find it hard to spot the joins. All Is Full Of Love is a glorious ballad and a very memorable one which deserved a much higher chart placing than the No.24 entry it obtained.

The other two tracks are remixes of the song, one by Funkstorung and the other being Mark Stents' original string-laden mix. Other mixes are available on the other CD singles also out now.

What this engaging video needed is an absolutely perfect picture with zero artifacts and that's exactly what you get. Although the back of the case say the video is presented in an aspect ratio of 4:3, it's actually 1.66:1 (15:9).

The average bitrate is a misleading-low 3.18Mb/s as that includes the time allocated to the two audio-only tracks which hover around 2Mb/s bringing the overall average down when the video itself probably averages out to around 7Mb/s and occasionally peaks over 9Mb/s. The disc is not 16:9-enhanced for widescreen televisions even though it's technically possible and it's a practice rarely used for a disc with a ratio of less than 16:9. Even though it's a case of encoding a picture with small amount of black bars at the side, within the 16:9-frame, such a feature may push the cost of the single up and the video still looks good when zoomed in on a widescreen TV.

The sound quality is top-notch for both the video track and the ensuing audio-only tracks.

Extras :

Chapters :

There are 3 chapters, one for each version of the song. The first track is the video, with two audio-only remixes to follow.

1. All Is Full Of Love (video edit) (4:25)
2. All Is Full Of Love (Funkstorung Exclusive mix) (4:36)
3. All Is Full Of Love (Strings) (4:46)

Languages & Lyrics :

The single is sung in English but no lyrics are included.

Menu :

The menu is a static and silent affair with the new Bjork logo and a choice of which track to play.

On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info, a One Little Indian Records logo and then the menu.

Overall, this is certainly an interesting title to use as the first chart-eligible DVD single and at a cost of £6.99 it's not really much more than the average import single which fans of an artist/band are willing to pay, even though it's nearly double the price of a standard CD single. It's become a popular option to include an MPEG1-encoded promo track on CD singles these days which can have a very poor quality - the same as that of Video CDs as it uses the same compression methods - so perhaps in time DVD singles will also become the norm and the price will come down.

This isn't Bjork's only current embarkation into DVD, a video compilation also being available now for £16.99. Read the review of Volumen

Bjork will soon be on the big screen as well in the Lars Von Trier musical, Dancer In The Dark, due for general release in the Spring of 2000.

SONGS	 		: *****
PICTURE QUALITY 	: *****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: 0
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
For more information on Bjork visit the One Little Indian website and her own site at www.Bjork.com

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