As Björk's residency at the Manchester International Festival continues, featuring the music of her forthcoming album, Biophilia, so too does the critical acclaim she has received for the performances. Björk is also guest editor of the entire 200th issue of Dazed & Confused magazine, which looks at the new album, the apps she has created for it, and the inspiration behind it. The issue is on sale tomorrow. Take an early look at dazeddigital.com.

The Guardian, whose G2 supplement made Björk the star for its cover story, Live from Planet Björk, published two new features on Biophilia, the first in which the Guardian's Alex Needham talks with Björk about her hopes for the project, walks through a couple of the forthcoming apps, and takes a closer look at the custom-made instruments designed for it.

"It must be one of the most complex pop shows ever," writes Needham, "and according to Björk, it could have been more elaborate still ... Yet, on purely artistic grounds, it's hard to regard Biophilia as anything other than a success."

The audience at last week's Manchester premiere were left "rapt" through the performance of all the new material. "Much of this is due to the sensory bombardment of music, images and costumes," he suggests. "Then there's Björk's extraordinary voice, once compared by Bono to an icepick, and still imperishable at 45."

Björk, for her part, when asked to put a word to all of this art she is creating answers that, while it may be pop, "perhaps I would rather call it folk music—folk music of our time. I was never too much into Warhol and the whole pop thing—it felt a bit superficial. I prefer folk. People. Humans."

Read the article at guardian.co.uk.

On that note, Needham's Guardian colleague Simon Reynolds looks at Björk's ever innovative career and wonders: Is Björk the last great pop innovator?

Following a long line of past innovative projects from the artist, "with the almost ludicrously ambitious Biophilia, Björk is on the cutting edge of finding ways that new media technology can enhance and expand the aesthetic experience of music, rather than deplete and cheapen it," writes Reynolds.

Answering the titular question of his article, Reynolds says: "When it comes down to it, Björk simply has no rivals for sustained pop innovation over the long haul. Who else can match her nearly 30 years of being so artistically restless, so fruitfully? ... Björk is peerless." He concludes: "Björk remains an icon: tiny but titanic, thanks to the size of her voice and the scope of her imagination."

Read that article at guardian.co.uk.

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The Daily Telegraph gives the Manchester performances four stars, with review Bernadette McNulty concluding that "the heart of her music is still made up of moments of simple, transcendent beauty."

Financial Times reviewer Ludovic Hunter-Tilney says that "in Biophilia she really does resemble a force of nature. Her voice obeys its own laws, swooping and growling in search of harmonies, singing the line 'Earth like a heart' with magnificent rolling 'r's. It is the perfect instrument to make us look anew at nature’s laws ... Biophilia’s songs are some of the best Björk has written for a long time."

Independent on Sunday reviewer Holly Williams says "Björk's delivery is as emotive and self-exposed as ever. She sings of cosmogony or crystals, but it still seems to wind up being all about love," ultimately proving "brilliantly original and ambitious."

The Quietus sees Biophilia as "a joyful trumpet blast for rationalism." Reviewer John Tatlock says "the show takes the audience's intelligence as a given, assumes their open-mindedness, and exalts in the idea that being smart can be fun." He sums up the current state of Björk this way: "Geekiness as sexiness, experimental music you can whistle, and still one of the great idiosyncratic pop vocalists of the modern age. An international treasure still."

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The next performance of Biophilia at the Campfield Market Hall for the Manchester International Festival is tomorrow night. For more information, visit mif.co.uk. To download "Crystalline," the first single off of Biophilia," visit the Nonesuch Store.