Björk: Selmasongs (soundtrack) [ONE LITTLE INDIAN]

Why you'll love it

This One Little Indian pressing was remastered from the original master tapes and cut with Direct Metal Mastering. "I've Seen It All" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

This edition

• Remastered from the original master tapes
• Direct Metal Mastering
• Numbered

About the album

Björk was asked to write the score for Dancer in the Dark and ended up starring in it too. She played Selma, a Czech immigrant factory worker losing her sight, who escapes into daydream musicals, and the songs are what Selma hears in her head. Björk had rarely acted before and has said she never wanted to; she made an exception for von Trier.

She built them from the world around the character, recording factory machines and trains on set with a DAT recorder and turning them into rhythm, so "Cvalda" starts as industrial clatter and becomes a shuffle. Mark Bell co-produced, Sjón and von Trier helped with the words, and "I've Seen It All" rides a loop of train sounds, with Thom Yorke singing the part Peter Stormare sings in the film. "Overture," "Scatterheart," "107 Steps" and "New World" sweep from strings to beats and back.

David Toop in The Wire heard everything from the Futurists to Broadway in it. It sounds like a musical written inside a factory, which, give or take a few trains, is exactly what it is.

Also at Kops: more Björk on vinyl · browse Soundtracks

Tracklist

Listen

On One Little Indian (cat# TPLP151DMM), a reissue of the 2000 soundtrack.