Bjork, Vespertine
Björk sings the body harmonic.
Vespertine is Björk's most serene and sensuous record. An album primarily about domestic and sexual bliss, it features some of the most intoxicatingly beautiful songs she has written: "Cocoon," "Aurora," "Heirloom." "Pagan Poetry" may be the single greatest track she has ever recorded.
The Björkian soundfield is much as it always is: skittering rhythms, warm keyboard tones, discreet "laptronic" pulses, plinking harps and swooshing strings, a general meshing of organic and synthetic textures. But her unique sonic palette is harnessed here in the service of hushed awe: womblike intimacy and occasional ecstasy.
Her extraordinary voice never sounded better. The urgent passion of "Pagan Poetry" is thrilling. The tremulous breathiness of her vocal on "Cocoon" — a song of sexual adoration for her artist husband Matthew Barney — is so vulnerably naked it's almost shocking: "He slides inside, half-awake, half asleep…"
After 1997's somber, elemental Homogenic, Vespertine is whispered, glimmeringly pretty. Certain tracks — "Undo," "It's Not Up to You," "An Echo, A Stain," "Sun in My Mouth," the closing "Unison" — are more drifting and hypnotic, less melodically arresting than others. But the floating mood of semi-somnambulism, of almost narcotic dreaminess, is maintained throughout. As she sings on "Undo," "it's not meant to be a struggle up here…"
Keyboards such as celeste and glockenspiel suggest the childlike feel of music boxes, complementing the often innocent wonder of Björk's voice. The gorgeous instrumental "Frosti" suggests the influence of Indonesian gamelan. In contrast, "Heirloom" and the opening "Hidden Place" up the tempo just enough to keep us on our toes.
No one has ever sounded remotely like this brave avant-garde sprite, this alternative diva. An acquired taste for many, she remains surely one of postmodern pop's few true geniuses. And the exquisite Vespertine will long be counted among her finest work.
