Small and intimate, that's the atmosphere at Vespertine. Björk's fourth official album is a fragile web of slow beats, harp, violin, cello, piano and Björk's childlike, disarming voice. In Cocoon, Björk is so close that you can hear her breath rustle next to you. In It's Not Up To You she is again the little girl from Debut with her elastic throat, singing to herself and reassuring: 'it's not up
… to you what people give you'. Pagan Poetry is moving, evoking memories of singer from , with an almost desperate, screaming vocal line. The instrumental Frosti is a tinkling music box, a melancholic sound and sets the tone for the next piece Aurora, which sounds like a beautiful church hymn. Dan Sun In My Mouth, a sensual account in which Björk sings, or rather narrates, a text from 1925 by the American poet EE Cummings. Very honest, vulnerable but strong, that's Vespertine. Björk seems to have reduced herself to a singer-songwriter with this - almost concept - album full of childlike cheerfulness of a girl who skips through the creaking snow, who settles with warm milk by the fireplace, opens her music box and sings to herself: ' I coward him, I coward him '. (BP)more
