-- by Steffie Nelson

There's no place like home. But if you're an international pop star, you've got to find it in the details. Settled in a royal blue chair that could have been custom matched to her smocklike dress and peacock eye makeup, Björk ponders what she calls the "curious mantra" of daily life. She's happy to share a few key ingredients for her home brew: "You open your laptop, you get your e-mails, you get friends around and cook them a meal. And especially if you make music in the room with your friends, that sort of becomes home."

Conceived as a love letter to the home, Björk's new album, Vespertine, originally bore the title Domestika. That name reflected the artist's cozy state as well as the fact that most of the songs are home recordings. But after three years of searching for and finally creating what she calls "paradise under the kitchen table," Björk felt the title was gratuitous; she wanted to add something that may have been missing. A dictionary sent to her by a friend yielded the word "vespertine," an archaic term for things that come alive at night or in darkness: stars, night-blooming plants, hibernating animals. These benevolent nocturnal spirits are represented throughout the record by the sparkling, childlike sounds of harps, harpsichords and music boxes.