![]() Like the last two Radiohead albums, Vespertine charts an unmapped zone between the alien world that surrounds us and the one that spins within. Cummings (“Sun in My Mouth”) and Harmony Korine (“Harm of Will”). ![]() Her vocal poetics also make an uncommonly animating match for verse borrowed from E.E. On “Cocoon,” she pushes a whispered coo to its strained limits, her hushed scream conveying love’s mix of ecstasy and anguish. Likewise, her singing swaps bombast for subtly arresting shadings. Past forays into jarring breakbeats and cartoonish exuberance have been replaced by glitchy ambiance and more measured release. Despite its typically dense orchestration, Vespertine ‘s hymnal feel is quieter and more reserved than anything Björk’s done. The first single, “Hidden Place,” throbs beneath a synth riff that corrodes like time-lapse footage of rusting steel before it reaches stirring heights. Programmed with help from techno-semiologists Matmos, Herbert and Mendoza, the album’s backing tracks crackle like signals on a short-wave radio, while strings swell to crescendo and avant-harpist Zeena Parkins picks melodies suited for an empty nave. True to her experimental past, Björk saves much of her storytelling for the music. Entire narratives are bound in her vocal delivery, and there’s a novel’s worth of unarticulated emotion in the polar wind that blows through Vespertine. ![]() As a singer, Björk trades on the weightless swoons and deeply rooted growls that can make a voice communicate as much as a full-body gesture. It’s that newly boundary-crossing talent-displayed in both her dramatically sweeping music and her painfully tender acting in Dancer in the Dark- that makes Vespertine (Elektra) her most accomplished album to date. Of course, the Icelandic individualist also revealed herself as an artist with considerably more talent than many in the room that night. For a brief spell, she descended upon Hollywood, did the red-carpet rounds and performed a song from her celebrated big-screen debut, flirting with the big time just long enough for gossip columnists to make her the night’s consummate fashion “don’t.” To the millions who get their culture fix from Entertainment Tonight, Björk is that freakish nymph who wore a swan at last year’s Oscars. ![]()
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