A pop star and public figure since the age of 11 in Iceland, the 35-year-old musician was accustomed to traveling fast and living fast. Björk's last full-length album, 1997's Homogenic, echoed this mood, with its urgent vocals, grand instrumentation and skittish beats. Rumored to have been inspired by her breakup with drum'n'bass innovator Goldie, Homogenic, with its epic emotions, led to a period of introspection. Björk started thinking about making music that would reach similar peaks but that dealt with internal states and smaller sounds. "It became the biggest challenge I could imagine," she says.Begun as she accepted the offer to score and then star in the controversial, award-winning film "Dancer in the Dark," Vespertine was an ideal complement to the role of Selma, which the first-time actress famously immersed herself in. There was an undeniable synergy between the two projects. "I was wanting to deal with a very introverted world, and then getting asked to do music for a blind girl who has her most extreme highs in a song, internally, seemed to go hand-in-hand." The process of recording Vespertine was approached informally, during the after-work hours. "It was never official record-making," she says of the process, which more often than not involved a bottle of wine and the company of friends.
Among those friends were the programmers in the electronic duo Matmos. While visiting the San Francisco pair known for sampling surgical sounds — and who will be backing the singer on her upcoming tour — Björk was presented with an ice cube tray percussion piece that was intended to evoke her native Iceland. "I was very impressed," she says with a smile. "There's not many tundra and glaciers in San Francisco."
And what vision of domestic bliss would be complete without romance? Linked of late to the conceptual filmmaker Matthew Barney, Björk is clearly under the influence of the "L" word. Vespertine is overflowing with romantic references. The opening track, "Hidden Place," features a choir of space sirens and tells of a new love that has a private side. "I'm not sure what to do with it or where to put it/ I'll keep it in a hidden place." "Pagan Poetry" sweeps and climbs upward on a harp motif as the vocals expand with emotion. The song closes with an a cappella incantation: "I love him, I love him ... she loves him, she loves him." "Cocoon" is an almost shockingly intimate love song. Jolts of static electricity and keyboards create a framework for Björk's breathless rejoicing: "Who would have known that a boy like him would have entered me lightly, restoring my blisses/ ... In his arms, gorgeousness: he's still inside me!"
