Björk: Vespertine (2LP) [ONE LITTLE INDIAN]

Why you'll love it

This One Little Indian 2LP set is on 180g vinyl in a glossy gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves. Vespertine reached No. 8 in the UK and No. 19 on the Billboard 200, and went gold in Canada.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeves
• Lyrics included

About the album

Its working title was Domestika, and Björk's first idea was a record about the small magic of everyday life, at one point including a song about looking for her keys. After the loud, armoured sound of Homogenic and the draining shoot for Dancer in the Dark, she wanted something hushed and close, and she built much of it on a laptop in a New York loft.

She gathered a delicate toolkit: harp, celesta, clavichord, strings and custom music boxes, with harpist Zeena Parkins, the duo Matmos, Thomas Knak (Opiate) and Console. Matmos made tiny "microbeats" from shuffling cards and cracking ice, so the rhythms crackle like a winter evening indoors. "Hidden Place" opens in a whisper of choir, "Cocoon" is barely there, "Pagan Poetry" builds to one of her most stirring moments, "Undo" glows, and "Unison" brings it home. Lines from E. E. Cummings turn up along the way.

She toured it in theatres with Parkins, Matmos and a choir of Inuit women, and critics still rank it among the best albums of all time. Somewhere along the way, a record that started as a hunt for lost keys turned into one of the most beautiful things on our shelves; the keys, as far as we know, are still at large.

Also at Kops: more Björk on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On One Little Indian (cat# TPLP101), the 2001 album.