Björk breathes life and soul into the electronic, infusing an abundance of personality and heart to that which is often criticised of being lifeless on her album Vespertine, mixing both the coldness of electronic and dance music with the more abstract and warm sounds of art pop, perfectly blending them to create an album that is equal parts personal, vulnerable, catchy and experimental, by exposing her inner self and seemingly putting everything of herself into a computer. This album is bursting with life, teeming with personality and takes a hold of you, pulling you into Björk's world to fully understand her way of thinking. The songs are beautifully composed, using the often 'thin' aspects of an electronic or techno sound, but laced with strings, choirs and even samples of orchestras which feel live to give the album a real warmth and depth; Björk has plugged a beating human heart into her computer with Vespertine and the songs are what surface as she plugs it into her a computer, a DVD or CD player, a piece of recording equipment to keep it alive.
"Through the warmest cord of care / Your love was sent to me / I'm not sure what to do with it / Or where to put it" Hidden Place
Björk has a way of describing the way that she feels with descriptions that are so unique to her, and creates a distinctive perspective unlike anyone else, as many songs on this album that are about love are not ordinary love songs, as Vespertine begins with the song Hidden Place. This song includes the first instance of the motif of glitchy samples and the extremely bass-y drum machine sounds mixed with the more humanist instruments, as slowly a choir of harmonies is added to create this eerie atmosphere as the song reaches the chorus, as the high flying strings effortlessly sweep in, along with more sampled percussion, transforming the song entirely! This mantra of 'cold verse' into 'warm' chorus is repeated throughout Vespertine, very effectively, and whilst I think that Hidden Place is not the strongest example of this, I think that the beauty of this song is in its lyrics. The "hidden place" is a place where love exists; a place of, not just her own making, but created by her and the person she is in a relationship with. This place is somewhere where Björk feels safe and capable of expressing the true experience of love, unlike in the outside world: this love is so pure that she cannot even express what it means, and even if she could, it would simply not be understood anywhere but in this hidden place. This feeling is so intense that she must hide it away, and she doesn't know what to do with it so she keeps it here, where she knows best and knows it will be safe.
"There lies my passion / There lies my love / I'll hide it under a blanket / Lull it to sleep" Hidden Place
As a philosophy student (who just learned about this two weeks ago) I feel like I draw comparisons from the lyrics of this song to Immanuel Kant's "Analytic of the Beautiful", where Kant states that art, natural beauty, music, poetry etc can be a gateway to experiencing the truly beautiful, but the beautiful is merely a feeling. Many people get wrapped up in what art they think is beautiful but is actually, rather, agreeable, meaning that it is pleasant to you specifically or good, meaning it has some kind of practical use. As Kant states, for the beautiful to be beautiful, it must be experienced by everyone, as it is undeniable and it also does not need the art itself, as it is all to do with the feeling. I get a strong feeling that the "hidden place" Björk speaks of is similar to this feeling: hard to understand to the outside world but once the hidden place has been experienced, it is so pure that it needs no explanation.
The word vespertine relates to occurring in the evening (from the Latin, vespertinus, which comes from vesper, meaning evening), as Björk, in my reading of the album, wants this album to be experienced in the evening. She creates another mantra of her own little space, perhaps where she made this album and perhaps where it is supposed to be enjoyed in the evening, although is not limited to the evening itself. I believe that vespertine is simply a feeling that feels like evening but is not specific to it. In comparison to its predecessor album Homogenic, which is great because of its larger than life and dramatic style, this album is so much more personal and small and whilst I do love Homogenic and think it is also a perfect album of Björk's, the more intimate nature and the tactual nature of Vespertine is more interesting to me, it feels like you can really pick this album up with your hands.
I want to return to the notion of the contrasting cold and warm on this album with one of my favourite moments: the song It's Not Up To You. This song is honestly the main reason I decided to write this review; this song is perfect and I can't remember the last time I heard a song as good as this and the use of the contrast again is incredible, as when the chorus comes in it is so powerful and also somehow extremely catchy, showcasing, again, Björk's ear for pop music as well as the more experimental. The lyrics on this song perhaps contradict the message of the album, as the theme is of the idea of control, and how wanting control of everything will ultimately end up hurting you. Perhaps Vespertine is Björk's closest experience to full control, yet she still recognises that even within the things she thinks she can have total control over, she cannot; there will always be an element of chaos within all things, even that which is closest to her.
"If you leave it alone / It might just happen / Anyway/ It's not up to you, oh it never really was" It's Not Up To You
One of the more sombre and intimate moments on the album, is Cocoon, the rawness and emotion on this song is immediately apparent and unshielded by any unnecessary instrumentation or sound. It feels as though she is speaking to us directly about her experiences. This song, along with Undo, come as something as a pair in my eyes, with Undo being slightly more sonically diverse, with a drum beat driving the song forward, but it feels almost as though you can hear her whispering the lyrics directly into your ear. An Echo A Stain also fits into this category of rawness, however this track being a lot more eerie and leaves you with a pit in your stomach. An Echo A Stain has moments of dance music with driving kick drums, mixed with unnerving synths as it feels like you're falling, deeper and deeper into ice.
Pagan Poetry is another electronically human song on the album, as Björk slowly begins to give up control. This theme is prominent and we see a real vulnerability to her, as she is genuinely scared of not having it. As the beautiful instrumentation of this song begins to cut out, we hear her vocals repeating over and over again, eerily saying:
"I love him / I love him / I love him / I love him" Pagan Poetry
As this slowly divulges into:
"She loves him (But he makes me want to hand myself over)" Pagan Poetry
as she gives into that which she fears the most, the surrendering of her autonomy.
After Pagan Poetry, we get to the beautiful interlude Frosti into the song Aurora, which has one of the best melodies of any song on the album with what sounds like a harp playing in the background. Björk's production isn't the only thing that should be focused on, as her voice and vocal presentation are perfect, as it is clear she has the ear for what makes a great pop song, as vocal melodies like that do shine through occasionally, but she really does prefer the weirder melodies where its almost impossible to follow, but is just so unique to her. That being said, the contrast is great as those more harmonic melodies do hit so much harder when choruses like that finally come in.
"I tumbled down / On my knees / Fill the mouth / With snow" Aurora
The strings on the back half of this album really do just accentuate how beautiful Björk's songwriting is, as I think this is the highlight for songs like Sun In My Mouth, Harm of Will and the closing track Unison. The ending to this album is huge, the swelling string section along with Björk's wailing vocals, almost shouting but never quite reaching that volume, are just beautiful. There are so many layers to all of these songs it really makes it impossible not to just put the album back on again.
Heirloom is a track that leans more towards Björk's previous albums, being slightly more dance inspired with a driving bassline and drums, but again sticks to the motif of Vespertine, making it extremely interesting, by pushing the boundary of the album itself, by including breakbeat drums, but never fully regressing back to her previous work's and keeping things new. The synths are beautiful on this song and pair amazingly with her voice, and these both contrast with the drum and bass sounds.
Vespertine is a deeply personal album, Björk wears all of her emotions on her sleeve and combines the poetic expression of herself with her influences of art pop and electronic music, melding the two seemingly un-fusable aspects of her music effortlessly into a project that is equal parts, cold, jagged and experimental and equal parts, warm, beautiful and homely. Björk's need to create an album that's intended purpose was to be listened to in the comfort of one's home forces her to reflect on what home is for her. Vespertine is not just an album, its a feeling, the feeling of comfort, or as comfortable as one can be within life with the knowledge that one can never be truly comfortable. Björk knows that perhaps this album is not as alluring as something with more drama like her previous records, but this album feels less like Björk trying to push the boundaries, and more like her simply doing it because she has no other choice; this album simply could not be made by anyone else. Vespertine forces us to realise that beauty is not as presentable as it seems and that sometimes we need to put time and effort into finding something as transient, but when we are able to find it, we should hold onto it, well, at least for as long as we can.
"I find it so amazing when people tell me that electronic music has no soul. You can't blame the computer. If there's no soul in the music then it's because nobody put it there"
