Part of the Listen to This Audio Guide
The fulminating textures of Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrordome,” which influenced Björk’s sense of sound (p. 148):
A bit of Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy” (p. 149):
Björk’s first solo album, Debut, led off with “Human Behavior” (p. 149), here performed live in 1994:
The atmospheric, captivating “Isobel,” from the 1995 album Post (p. 149), in a live performance with the harpist-composer Zeena Parkins, the electronic duo Matmos, an Inuit choir, and orchestra:
Returning to her avant-garde roots, with “Pluto,” from the 1997 album Homogenic (p. 153):
And the video for “Hidden Place,” the lead song from 2001’s Vespertine (p. 153):
A piano demonstration of the opening chord of “Hidden Place,” the half-diminished seventh, followed by the beginning of the song:
Björk meets Messiaen in “Cover Me” (p. 154):
Also from the box set Family Tree.
Here are some photographs from the remainder of my time with Björk: the house in Arembepe where she worked further on the album (p. 151), the drummers of Cortejo Afro (p. 151), and shots of Matthew Barney’s float in Carnaval (pp. 151-52). Valgeir Sigurðsson, who engineered Medúlla at his Greenhouse Studios in Iceland, can be seen in the white coat on the right-hand side of the top of the float.
