Björk
Vespertine

Bjork has done some crazy things. If you're lucky, you can just fall asleep while listening to "Selmasongs," the same goes for "Drowning restraint 9." She then thought there weren't enough musicians with an ecological streak and based her latest work, "Volta," on the theme of fighting for the environment, creating an album that saves a few good points but for the rest is somewhat mediocre. Going through the discography, you realize that during her career, the most valuable albums (except for the live ones that somehow leave you with that mixed expression of wonder, enchantment, and foolishness) are the studio ones released before the "Greatest hits." "Debut" was an interesting debut and at the time produced astonishing singles ("Human behaviour"), "Post" is a pop marvel, "Homogenic" isn't bad (and "All is full of love" is exceptional). Concluding this series of works that don't hide their cyclical nature (as suggested by the titles themselves) there's "Vespertine," which in my opinion remains the best result of the musical experimentation performed by the ice sprite.

"Vespertine" was released in 2001 after a series of professional incidents that our Icelandic heroine had to face. The acting experience under the guidance of Lars Von Trier in "Dancer in the Dark" had exhausted her. The director's requirements and the flamboyance at the base of the acting profession had forced her to inhabit the skin of a character too different from herself and thus to move away from her world. For someone used to placing a close-up of her face on her album covers, devoted to egocentrism, this experience can be traumatizing. "Vespertine" therefore stems from the desire to rediscover herself, her own imagery. And all of this is just the starting point. "Vespertine" is also a celebration of nature, but not the physical one found in "Volta." It is nature understood as a constructive and destructive force, as a divine entity. The landscapes sketched in the records are hidden shelters, vaguely familiar environments. Bjork devotes herself to a contemplative work, capable of evoking suggestive nocturnes and sensual atmospheres. Not knowing "Vespertine" means precluding the possibility of fully understanding the essence of "Medulla."

The album begins and I'm convinced that "Hidden place" is a synthetic and beautiful preamble: Bjork returns to being the same as always (the choirs expressly say it, a clear reference to her Nordic roots) and the music serves to drag the listener into a distant universe using lyrics that evoke feelings of joy, pagan rituals, and evident references to sexuality. The opening track is also a good connection between "Vespertine" and her previous discography, since from "Cocoon" onwards things really change; in fact, the song presents a love text that Bjork sings as if she's afraid to let her voice be heard, unfolding over a linear electronic base with some interference that almost recreates a "vintage" effect. The arpeggios of "It's not up to you", the initial music box of the introspective "Sun in my mouth", the melody of the concluding "Unison," and the fun rhythm of "Undo" bring a bit of light to the continual twilight of this record. "Pagan poetry" is one of the most inaccessible songs she has ever written and one of the most beautiful, as well as "An Echo, A Stain."

Nothing more can be added. Wanting to explain "Vespertine" means taking on the challenging task of illustrating Bjork, of opening the doors to her world. For this reason, it's an album that must simply be listened to, from which you should let yourself be gently carried away, by whose music you should let yourself be enveloped like in a cocoon, just as happens to Bjork in the "Cocoon" video.

A must-have.