Tuesday September 11, 2001

Vespertine

(Elektra)

While her sense in formal gowns may be questionable (the infamous Oscar-night swan dress makes a reprise appearance on Vespertine's cover), eccentric Icelandic songstress Bjork seems to have a flawless ear for quirky, forward-thinking pop. Her crowning achievement so far, 1997's Homogenic, represented one of the most successful fusions of electronic and live sounds to date, a frosty collision of stark, cutting-edge beats, icicle-crisp strings and Bjork's uniquely distinctive vocals. The effect - sprawling techno symphonies as icy and beautiful as her home island - is startling and innovative, one of a very few recent releases to realize the potential of new music technology and truly sound modern.

Like Homogenic, Vespertine - defined on the singer's Web site as "things flourishing in the evening" - possesses a Nordic sensibility born of long, frigid winters. But while Homogenic's string quartets and austere beats conjured images of a crisp, frozen arctic landscape, Vespertine's more intimate arrangements - employing harps, music boxes, voice choirs and the Japanese koto - seem imbued with a sense of indoors, of a cozy cabin well-insulated against the cold outside. Vespertine's lyrics are similarly more intimate - instead of her last album's metaphoric hunters and killer whales, Bjork here directly addresses her private life. At times, this new focus is startling - the frank sexual metaphor guiding "Cocoon," for instance, may be too much for some listeners.

Vespertine is in some ways a less ambitious album than Homogenic, representing a contemplative sidestep rather than a great leap forward. But for fans of exciting pop music that actually sounds new, rather than a retread of decades-old clichˇs, Bjork's latest is as refreshing as a frosty sno-cone on a summer day.