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Vespertine

 
Album Review: Vespertine
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Vespertine

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  • Artist: Bjork
  • Rating: StarStarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: August 28, 2001
  • Total Time: 55:33
  • Type: Lyrics are included with the album
  • Genre: Electronica

Review

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. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Hidden Place (Lyrics) Björk Gudmundsdottir, Björk Björk (5:28)
Cocoon Björk, Thomas Knak Björk (4:28)
It's Not Up to You (Lyrics) Björk, Björk Gudmundsdottir Björk (5:08)
Undo Björk Gudmundsdottir, Björk, Thomas Knak Björk (5:38)
Pagan Poetry (Lyrics) Björk Gudmundsdottir, Björk Björk (5:14)
Frosti Björk, Björk Gudmundsdottir Björk (1:41)
Aurora (Lyrics) Björk Gudmundsdottir, Björk Björk (4:39)
An Echo, A Stain Guy Sigsworth, Björk Björk (4:04)
Sun in My Mouth (Lyrics) Björk, Guy Sigsworth Björk (2:40)
Heirloom (Lyrics) Björk, Martin Console Björk (5:12)
Harm of Will (Lyrics) Björk, Guy Sigsworth Björk (4:36)
Unison Björk, Björk Gudmundsdottir Björk (6:45)

Credits

Isobel Griffiths (Orchestral Agent), Björk (Music Box), Matmos (Programming), Thomas Knak (Producer), Björk (Harp Arrangement), Vince Mendoza (Orchestration), Björk (Vocal Editing), Matthew Herbert (Programming), Guy Sigsworth (Programming), Björk (Producer), Damian Taylor (Programming), Marius de Vries (Production Assistant), Björk (String Arrangements), Björk (Programming), Matt Fields (Assistant), Stuart Green (Choir Coordinator), Matmos (Beat Programming), Vince Mendoza (Choir Arrangement), Thomas Knak (Programming), Guy Sigsworth (Celeste), Jennie O'Grady (Choir Coordinator), Stuart Green (Coordination), Guy Sigsworth (Clavichord), Guy Sigsworth (Beat Programming), Aaron Franz (Assistant Engineer), Guy Sigsworth (Choir Arrangement), Damian Taylor (Beat Programming), Marius de Vries (Beat Programming), Rory (Assistant Engineer)
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Wikipedia: Vespertine
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Vespertine
Studio album by Björk
Released August 27, 2001
Recorded 2000 - 2001
Genre Electronica, IDM, ambient, alternative rock, musique concrete, illbient
Length 55:33
Label One Little Indian
Producer Björk
Thomas Knak
Martin Console
Marius de Vries
Professional reviews
Björk chronology
Selmasongs
(2000)		 Vespertine
(2001)		 Greatest Hits
(2002)
Singles from Vespertine
  1. "Hidden Place"
    Released: August 2001
  2. "Pagan Poetry"
    Released: November 2001
  3. "Cocoon"
    Released: March 2002
For other uses, see Vespertine (disambiguation).

Vespertine, released in August 2001, is an album by the Icelandic singer/songwriter/musician Björk. It sees Björk creating an introverted, quiet world of swirling microbeats and personal lyrics. On the cover she can be seen wearing the swan dress (designed by Marjan Pejoski) that caused a stir at the 2001 Academy Awards.

The album was originally released both on CD and on DVD-Audio in 2-channel (48khz/24bit) and 5.1-channel (96khz/24bit) advanced resolution.It was re-released in 2006 as a DualDisc including a lower-quality DTS 96/24 version of the original advanced resolution 5.1 mix. The DualDisc also formed part of the (____surrounded): box set.

Contents

Album information

Björk uses an array of sampled objects to create beats and soundscapes in a number of songs on Vespertine, including shuffling cards on "Cocoon" and "Hidden Place"; snow being walked upon on "Frosti", and ice being cracked and smashed on "Aurora".

Vespertine is Björk's longest album, at 55:33 (apart from compilations).

"Hidden Place", "Pagan Poetry" and "Cocoon" were released as singles from the album. A rumoured fourth single, "It's Not Up to You", never made it to release, presumably because of the birth of Björk's daughter Isadora.

The lyrics to "An Echo, A Stain" are based on Sarah Kane's play Crave.

The lyrics of "Harm of Will" were written by Harmony Korine and are allegedly about Will Oldham.

The last track on the album, "Unison," uses a sample of St Paul's Cathedral Choir singing a segment of Patrick Gowers's Viri Galilaei recorded in 1994.

The initial title for the album was Domestika. A song of the same title was recorded, but was eventually included as a B-side on the "Pagan Poetry" single as "Domestica", which has the original title "Lost Keys".

Early versions of the album were leaked onto the internet with some differences to the final release. Tracks were in a different order, the song "It's in Our Hands" was originally included (replaced by the instrumental "Frosti" on the final version), and some tracks appeared under different titles, including "Pagan Poetry" ("Blueprint"), "Cocoon" ("Mouth") and "Heirloom" ("Crabcraft").

On August 22, 2008 Björk wrote an open letter on her official website correcting a long-standing mistake - that Valgeir Sigurðsson has over the years been credited with writing the instrumentals for the album. She explained that, in fact, he had been only an engineer and programmer on some of the tracks on the album and speculated that part of the reason for the mistake was to do with sexism in the music industry.[1]

Hidden Artwork

The CD inlay card contains drawings on both sides. Since the back of the CD jewel case is made of white plastic (with a sticker listing the tracks), only the inner side drawing is visible. To look at the other side's drawing, the CD packaging must be disassembled.


Track listing

# Title Length
1. "Hidden Place" (Björk, Guy Sigsworth, Mark Bell) 5:29
2. "Cocoon" (Björk, Thomas Knak) 4:27
3. "It's Not Up to You" (Björk) 5:09
4. "Undo" (Björk, Thomas Knak) 5:38
5. "Pagan Poetry" (Björk) 5:14
6. "Frosti" (Björk) 1:43
7. "Aurora" (Björk) 4:39
8. "An Echo, A Stain" (Björk, Sigsworth) 4:04
9. "Sun in My Mouth" (Björk, Sigsworth, E. E. Cummings) 2:40
10. "Heirloom" (Björk, Console) 5:12
11. "Harm of Will" (Björk, Sigsworth, Harmony Korine) 4:37
12. "Unison" (Björk) 6:48
13. "Generous Palmstroke" (Björk, Zeena Parkins)(Japanese bonus track) 4:24

Reception

Vespertine was widely acclaimed by music critics. Both Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club and David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine named Vespertine Björk's best album to date. Allmusic stated that "Vespertine isn't merely lovely; it proves that in Björk's hands, intimacy can be just as compelling as louder emotions", while Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine said the album is "nothing short of brilliance." Ian Wade also praised the album awarding it 9 stars out of 10. A more lukewarm review came from Pitchfork Media who thought that "While undeniably beautiful, Vespertine fails to give electronic music the forward push it received on Björk's preceding albums" and that the album "is riddled with sameness."

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100, Vespertine currently holds a rating of 88/100, indicating universal acclaim.[2] The album is also ranked #53 on Metacritic's 200 best-reviewed albums.[3] It was also nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 2002 Grammy Awards. Recently music webzine Drowned in Sound named Vespertine the number-one album of the last six years not to garner press attention.[4] Stylus Magazine placed it 36th on their 'Top 50 Albums: 2000-2005'.[5] Vespertine was also selected as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[6]

Online music magazine Pitchfork placed Vespertine at number 92 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.[7]

The album peaked at number eight on the UK Albums Chart and at number 19 on the U.S. Billboard 200. It also reached number one in Spain, France and Norway and had sold two million copies by the end of 2001.

Samples
"Unison"
"Unison" by Björk
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Comments by Björk about Vespertine

“ Vespertine is little insects rising from the ashes. ”
“ It sounds like a winter record. If you wake up in the middle of the night, and you go out in the garden, everything's going on out there that you wouldn't know about. That's the mood I'm trying to get. Snow owls represent that very well. ”
“ I was bored of big beats. I'd listened a lot of it, to drill'n'bass, a lot of Rephlex stuff, the most mental cut-up shit that you could find. This is more electronic folk music, music for the home. It's corny to make a soundtrack for making a sandwich, but I quite like it. For so long I wanted to whisper. It was a watercolour as opposed to an oil. But 'Pagan Poetry' was the last song I did, and I was hungry for something physical again. ”
“ I was collecting together all the noises that I know that are like hibernating and that sound like the inside of your head. I guess 'Vespertine' for me was going really, really, really internal and trying to make music with huffs and whispering and music boxes. ”

Personnel

  • Björk – producer, programming, beat programming, basslines, string arrangements, choir arrangements, harp arrangements, music box arrangements, vocal editing
  • Valgeir Sigurðsson – programming, beat programming, ProTools, engineer
  • Martin Gretschmann aka Console (musician) – producer, programming
  • Jake Davies – programming, ProTools, engineer
  • Matthew Herbert – programming
  • Leigh Jamieson – ProTools
  • Thomas Knak – production, programming
  • Jan "Stan" Kybert – ProTools
  • Matmos – programming, beat programming
  • Vince Mendoza – string arrangements, choir arrangements, orchestration
  • Zeena Parkins – harp, harp arrangements
  • Jack Perron – adaptation to music box
  • Guy Sigsworth – programming, beat programming, celeste, celeste arrangements, clavichord, clavichord arrangements, choir arrangements
  • Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing
  • Damian Taylor – programming, beat programming, ProTools
  • Caryl Thomas – harp
  • Marius de Vries – producer, programming, beat programming
  • M/M (Paris) – art direction, design and illustration
  • Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin – photography
  • Patrick Gowers – Composer of Vocal and Organ Arrangements on Unison
  • St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, conducted by John Scott – Choir on Unison

Charts

Country Peak position Certification Sales
Australia 9
Austria 5
Germany 3
Spain 1 Gold 75,000+
Canada 2 Gold 50,000+[8]
Finland 3
France 1 Platinum 222,000+
Italy 2
New Zealand 32
Norway 1
Poland 6
Sweden 7 Gold 30,000+
Switzerland 3
U.K. 8 Silver 60,000+
United States 19 414,000+

References

  1. ^ http://bjork.com/news/?id=854;year=2008
  2. ^ http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/bjork/vespertine?q=bjork
  3. ^ http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/
  4. ^ Drowned in Sound - Features - DiS is 6: Our 66, the top six
  5. ^ The Top 50 Albums: 2000-2005 - Article - Stylus Magazine
  6. ^ Outline Page
  7. ^ Pitchfork staff (September 30, 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 100-51". Pitchfork. http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7708-the-top-200-albums-of-the-2000s-100-51/. Retrieved October 1, 2009. 
  8. ^ Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA): Certification Results

External links

v • d • e
Björk
Discography · Awards
Studio albums
Björk · Debut · Post · Homogenic · Vespertine · Medúlla · Volta
Soundtracks
Compilations
Singles
Video albums
Other
Bands
Films

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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Björk: Hidden Place (2001 Music Film)

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