FEATURE:
Pagan Poetry
Björk’s Vespertine at Twenty
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IT is a busy time for album anniversaries…
IN THIS PHOTO: Björk in New York in 2001/PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cultice
and I almost overlooked Björk’s Vespertine. Released on 27th August, 2001, it is one of the best of her career. If some place it out of the top three, I think it is as strong as her previous album: 1997’s Homogenic. Maybe not as bombastic and pulsating as earlier albums, there is so much texture and beauty through Vespertine. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews in a minute. Even if you are not au fait with her work, I would urge people to buy Björk’s Vespertine. It is hard to believe that it is twenty tomorrow! I am not going to go into the whole recording process and how it differs from her previous albums. I guess there is a sense of Björk become more introspective and serene. Not that Vespertine lacks punch and songs that have a physicality to them. I suppose the songwriting direction is an evolution. To me, Vespertine is one of Björk’s classics; underrated and deserving of new praise on its twentieth anniversary. In 2001, there was so much terrific Hip-Hop, Pop, R&B and Rock. Vespertine could have got lost or overlooked. As it was, the reviews were tremendous. I will come to a coupe soon. Before then, I want to bring in an article from Classic Album Sundays . Last year, they stated why Vespertine is a forgotten treasure:
“Despite its lack of high-profile singles, this sleeper hit is perhaps the most carefully considered and cohesive entry in Björk’s discography. It would come to be known as one of her most empowering and subversive albums, created at a point in her career where she found herself at the height of global fame and at odds with the allegedly abusive and controversial director Lars Von Trier, in whose film, Dancer in the Dark, she had recently starred. The experience of shooting this emotionally intense feature with the future Anti-Christ creator had been so traumatic for the singer that she declared her retirement from acting soon after its release. Whilst she fulfilled her duties recording the film’s soundtrack, Selma Songs, Björk worked on her own music to counterbalance the unpleasantries of her day-job. Her previous album, Homogenic, released in 1997, had introduced a bold new-direction to her artistry – a sonic leap of faith that combined lush orchestral string arrangements with electronic beats in a way that felt both refreshing and timely.
Björk enlisted the help of American experimental electronic producers Matmos to add the final polish to her finished songs. The pair used their technical expertise to continue the process of “taking something very tiny and magnifying it up to big”, constructing microcosmic beats made from footsteps in the snow, a deck of playing cards, and intricate glitchy patterns. The result foreshadows the emergence of what is today known as ASMR – Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. This online phenomenon, popularised through websites such as YouTube, uses tactile sound to stimulate a paresthesia response: a tingling of the scalp, neck, and spine, which, for some, can lead to a state of “low-grade euphoria”. Recently, the rise of whisper-pop, spearheaded by teenage icon Billie Eilish, has taken this principle to the heart of mainstream culture with innovative results. The eighteen year-old’s nightmarish ‘Bury A Friend’ sounds like a gothic inversion of the forward-thinking ideas Björk was exploring on Vespertine.
This sensual kaleidoscope is the undercurrent to some of Björk’s most intimate expressions of love and desire. These unapologetically explicit depictions of female sexuality were influenced by her new relationship with the visual artist Matthew Barney, with whom she would later have a daughter. On songs such as ‘Cocoon’ the power of her desire is overwhelming, the lyrics describing sex in a “saintly trance” and with “miraculous sensitivity”, blurring the lines between carnal passion and divine intervention. The song’s minimalist yet strangely enveloping production wraps around her dynamic performance, which, whilst never raising much beyond a whisper, portrays a range of emotion that is as impressive as it is unique to Björk’s vocal register, breaking down into pure exhalation in its most exhilarating moments. Further explored on songs like ‘Sun In My Mouth’, Björk’s emphasis of the feminine sexual perspective on Vespertine marked her disregard for this cultural taboo, exposing its sexist undertones whilst demonstrating the beauty of allowing this viewpoint to flourish in mainstream works of art.
Björk enlisted the help of American experimental electronic producers Matmos to add the final polish to her finished songs. The pair used their technical expertise to continue the process of “taking something very tiny and magnifying it up to big”, constructing microcosmic beats made from footsteps in the snow, a deck of playing cards, and intricate glitchy patterns. The result foreshadows the emergence of what is today known as ASMR – Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. This online phenomenon, popularised through websites such as YouTube, uses tactile sound to stimulate a paresthesia response: a tingling of the scalp, neck, and spine, which, for some, can lead to a state of “low-grade euphoria”. Recently, the rise of whisper-pop, spearheaded by teenage icon Billie Eilish, has taken this principle to the heart of mainstream culture with innovative results. The eighteen year-old’s nightmarish ‘Bury A Friend’ sounds like a gothic inversion of the forward-thinking ideas Björk was exploring on Vespertine.
This sensual kaleidoscope is the undercurrent to some of Björk’s most intimate expressions of love and desire. These unapologetically explicit depictions of female sexuality were influenced by her new relationship with the visual artist Matthew Barney, with whom she would later have a daughter. On songs such as ‘Cocoon’ the power of her desire is overwhelming, the lyrics describing sex in a “saintly trance” and with “miraculous sensitivity”, blurring the lines between carnal passion and divine intervention. The song’s minimalist yet strangely enveloping production wraps around her dynamic performance, which, whilst never raising much beyond a whisper, portrays a range of emotion that is as impressive as it is unique to Björk’s vocal register, breaking down into pure exhalation in its most exhilarating moments. Further explored on songs like ‘Sun In My Mouth’, Björk’s emphasis of the feminine sexual perspective on Vespertine marked her disregard for this cultural taboo, exposing its sexist undertones whilst demonstrating the beauty of allowing this viewpoint to flourish in mainstream works of art”.
Spend some time with the spectacular Vespertine. It is an album one can lose themselves in. I have always been blown away by Björk’s invention and how she constantly moves forward. Recorded across various studios, the album could have been disjointed. As it is, there is this beautiful sense of harmony. Björk wanted to make an album with an intimate, sound, breaking away from the feel of Homogenic (1997). Given the new popularity of Napster and music downloads, she decided to use instruments whose sounds would not be compromised when downloaded and played on a computer, including the harp, the celesta, clavichord, strings, and custom music boxes. The first review that I want to source is from AllMusic. This is their take on Vespertine:
“After cathartic statements like Homogenic, the role of Selma in Dancer in the Dark, and the film's somber companion piece, Selmasongs, it's not surprising that Björk's first album in four years is less emotionally wrenching. But Vespertine isn't so much a departure from her previous work as a culmination of the musical distance she's traveled; within songs like the subtly sensual "Hidden Place" and "Undo" are traces of Debut and Post's gentle loveliness, as well as Homogenic and Selmasongs' reflective, searching moments. Described by Björk as "about being on your own in your house with your laptop and whispering for a year and just writing a very peaceful song that tiptoes," Vespertine's vocals seldom rise above a whisper, the rhythms mimic heartbeats and breathing, and a pristine, music-box delicacy unites the album into a deceptively fragile, hypnotic whole. Even relatively immediate, accessible songs such as "It's Not Up to You," "Pagan Poetry," and "Unison" share a spacious serenity with the album's quietest moments. Indeed, the most intimate songs are among the most varied, from the seductively alien "Cocoon" to the dark, obsessive "An Echo, A Stain" to the fairy tale-like instrumental "Frosti." The beauty of Vespertine's subtlety may be lost on Björk fans demanding another leap like the one she made between Post and Homogenic, but like the rest of the album, its innovations are intimate and intricate. Collaborators like Matmos -- who, along with their own A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, appear on two of 2001's best works -- contribute appropriately restrained beats crafted from shuffled cards, cracking ice, and the snap-crackle-pop of Rice Krispies; harpist Zeena Parkins' melodic and rhythmic playing adds to the postmodernly angelic air. An album singing the praises of peace and quiet, Vespertine isn't merely lovely; it proves that in Björk's hands, intimacy can be just as compelling as louder emotions”.
For anyone who likes Vespertine, I would suggest further reading and exploration. It is such a brilliant album that proved Björk is in a league of her own. Just before rounding off, it is worth quoting the BBC’s assessment of a classic from 2001:
“No doubt the press flurries accompanying the release of this record will be full of references to 'bonkers Icelandic pixie Björk' or the like, but that would be a severe underestimation of what is after all a singular talent. Vespertine is Björk's most personal record, both in that she's had more to do with the music than ever before, and also that it continues with her apparent desire to write songs as confessionals. Whereas earlier songs like "Human Behaviour" and "Venus as a Boy" were observational, third person affairs, much of her subsequent writing has gravitated towards an intensely intimate self expression. Pretty much everything on Vespertine is written in the first person, to often quietly devastating emotional effect; there are moments that shock in their honesty, and much that would maybe come across as cliché in someone else's hands.
Like her last album, Homogenic, there's nothing much on the record that's immediate (save perhaps "Hidden Place" or "It's Not Up to You", both which have spine-meltingly gorgeous choruses); this is a record that reveals its secrets slowly. It's generally a more stripped down affair than previous records; muted beats like footsteps in the snow, whispers, clicks, and sighs open out occasionally into the widescreen lushness of Post and Homogenic; the songs have a mix of fragility and strength which is totally convincing.
As usual, Björk has chosen her collaborators with much care; UK electronica whiz Herbert, Californian avant laptop duo Matmos, harpist Zeena Parkins, as well as lifting a bit of e.e. cummings' poetry for "Sun in my Mouth". There are glacial, slow moving strings, glitchy electronics, blurry atmospherics and even the odd choir lurking in the background, but it's Björk's singing which steals the show, maybe because it fits so perfectly with the arrangements this time rather than sounding superimposed over them.
Though always an expressive instrument, her voice can still shatter the odd wineglass but here her phrasing seems looser, more plastic, sure enough of itself to sound small and broken at times. The effect throughout is unapologetically beautiful, totally immersive and often crushingly moving. It's difficult to pick out highlights from a record that really demands to be listened to in it's entirety, but "Cocoon" and "Undo" stand out (today, anyway). That Björk ? She's Venus as a Girl…”.
A very happy twentieth anniversary to Björk’s Vespertine. With songs like Pagan Poetry, Cocoon and Hidden Place, there are these amazingly powerful songs that have stood the test of time. There is an agelessness to Björk’s music that other artists do not necessarily possess. On its twentieth anniversary, I wanted to show my love and appreciation of one of Björk’s…
GREATEST releases.