Jen Martensen Writing

Vespertine means "happening, opening, or blooming in the evening." The newest release from the truly unique, most blessed phenomenon that is Bjork certainly does have a dusky, twilight feel to it. This album is more ethereal, gentle, and delicate than any of her earlier work; anyone expecting hard-beat dance singles like those she started out with ("Big Time Sexuality") won't have that quest satisfied here.

Rife with emotion, Bjork lays bare her most personal self. The sparse and gorgeous musical arrangements include clavichords, harps, orchestras and one instrumental track of nothing but layered music boxes ("Frosti"), embellished with electronic processing and Pro Tools. Structurally complicated, her songs remain subtile like an intricate but fragile lace. The result is a glimpse at the internal Bjork, a passionate, fervent, strikingly intimate recording that's slow to bloom and intense to absorb.

Vespertine is a musical shudder, the aural equivalent of a goosebump rush. It feels like the listener is right under her skin, in amongst nerve endings, awash in trepidation, love, euphoria, fear, resolution and ultimately peace.

Bjork has said that most of the vocals on Vespertine were recorded in one take, after much careful deliberation over the musical arrangements and preparation for performance. The resulting freshness to her singing comes through. Her voice is as strong and clear as ever, but there really aren't any over-the-top showcase moments where it soars dramatically and forcefully to its capable limits. She's kept her singing perfectly in balance with the savory lightness of the music. She's also joined on many songs by a choir, fleshing out lush choral moments that could never be duplicated by just multitracking her single voice.

The cover art of Vespertine is black and white, appropriately stark and straightforward. Adorned with a photo of Bjork laid prone, wearing the swan dress she appeared in at last year's Academy Awards, she has truly grown into her own graceful place and bravely allows us entry to all she's discovered in herself.

Lyrically, Bjork again paints gloriously descriptive pictures, tells colorful stories and focuses on the most minute details of situations that would be overlooked by most. Her songs become tactile, vocal movies that carry you away into her imagination while still relating to feelings and situations that are more universal. Though she's writing from her own heart, she can still touch everyone else's.

"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain; of strength and freedom; the beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love; the cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony."

- Benjamin Britten, contemporary British operatic composer