Björk still has her finger on the pulse

Björk has never been tethered by time. Without liner notes, dropping a needle into any groove in her catalog can put you in the deep past, the distant future, or a different dimension entirely. And hearing her speak about her music in an unfiltered, psychosexual stream of consciousness does little to dispel the notion that she’s visiting from another planet. Her work as a curator and DJ, on the other hand, is a reminder that she’s a creature of the present, a true head who’s just as enamored with bassy club sounds as she is with the higher frequencies she channels in her own esoteric creations.

Friday night at Under the K Bridge Park — a large asphalt area beneath the Kosciuszko Bridge in Greenpoint, Brooklyn — Björk worked her magic on the decks, serving up a global tasting menu of bold sounds to a gleeful crowd. Her two sets — following the night’s opener, Bristol producer Mun Sing, who performed his first live set in the U.S. as the crowd trickled in, and preceding its closer, Irish-Chilean artist Sega Bodega, who stayed locked in as the lot began to empty — were perfectly paced, lifting the vibes of a wet, overcast evening and pushing them further skyward as the clock passed midnight and the air turned crisp.

As is her custom, Björk DJed from the center of a temporary forest, dressed like an exotic bird as she flitted in and out of view behind the dense vegetation. Her first set could have functioned as a lowkey warmup, but she dialed up the energy early, placing brutalist tracks like Blackman’s scrappy “Bastards” jungle remix and LustSickPuppy’s rap-rave banger “KETCHUP MUSTARD” (nonbinary and women MCs were emphasized early and often, with CupcakKe, Junglepussy, and Shygirl also featured) alongside the tentative, angelic chorus of Marina Herlop’s “La Alhambra” and the decadent, sugary bounce of Rema’s “Charm” before closing with Csso’s infectious and unrelenting singeli showstopper “Shobo.”

When she returned three hours later, she continued to highlight the global south, transporting her audience to the Bolivian Andes for Markasata’s “Forasteros,” to South Africa for Tiyiselani Vomaseve’s “Na Xaniseka,” to Senegal for Aby Ngana Diop’s “Ndadje,” to Angola for Pongo’s “Bruxos,” and beyond. Cleverly, she used “Uh Uh Balançou” — a joint track from the Parisian-Angolan DJ Lycox and São Paulo’s JLZ — to bridge the sounds of the Portuguese-speaking African nation with those of the epicenter of baile funk’s chaotic mandelão strain.

Across both sets, she indulged in some well-received self-referentiality, weaving in Olof Dreijer’s remix of her recent Rosalía collaboration “Oral,” as well as plentiful shoutouts to her past and present collaborators, some of whom she shared the stage with Friday night.

Jlin followed Björk’s first outing with a live set that blended her challenging, knotty beats with more dancefloor-ready material, placing the slippery textures of her polyrhythmic percussion front and center at all times. She was followed immediately by Eartheater, who made her physical and vocal presence known more than any of the night’s other performers, haunting the tracks she spun with otherworldly warblings. And Shygirl showed off her curatorial chops, leaning into the clubby energy of her most recent EP, Club Shy.

Under the K Bridge Park is a strange place to see a show. The industrial atmosphere of its surrounding neighborhood and its inhabitation of a local skatepark, combined with festival staples like Instagrammable light shows and overpriced drinks, give it an unshakable ambience of late-capitalist doom. On the flipside, the bridge provides excellent acoustics, and the quality of Friday’s performances more than made up for any of my early misgivings.

Björk, for her part, conducted herself like an enigmatic master of ceremonies, wordlessly communicating her enthusiasm to the crowd as she bounced behind her plant fortress, spinning songs that galvanized the interborough air. Even from hiding, it was clear that her fascination with what makes people move grew not only from researching human behavior, but from being a full participant in the joys and agonies of terrestrial life.