As a musical representation of the dizziness of new love, however, it is perfect. On one level, Arisen My Senses sounds like chaos: crashing rhythms and overlapping voices that render the lyrics largely incomprehensible, alongside unpredictable scatterings of harp and explosions of electronics. The Oscars dress that everyone remembers … Photograph: Rex 12. The moment when everything dies away except Björk singing “I love him” is among the most powerful in her catalogue. You can hear the results fluttering alongside a harp on Pagan Poetry, a track that starts out being serene and chilled, and gradually works up a striking erotic charge as it goes. Pagan Poetry (2001)ījörk’s original concept for Vespertine involved having “icy”-sounding musical boxes specially made. Its infectiously giddy mood is potentiated by the sound of an Indian orchestra, recorded in Mumbai by Talvin Singh.

Venus As a Boy (1993)Īpparently Björk’s most-covered song – something like 30 different versions exist – Venus As a Boy sounds utterly lovestruck: “His wicked sense of humour / Suggests exciting sex”. It is a fizzing, electrifying blast of beats and distorted thumb-piano that embodies the lyrics: “metallic carnage ferocity”.

Earth Intruders (2007)ījörk has always had great taste when it comes to collaborators – never more so than on Earth Intruders, which pitches the hip-hop auteur Timbaland against the Congolese “all-powerful likembe orchestra” Konono No 1 to startling effect. But Army of Me also works as a ferocious statement of individual artistic intent (“Self-sufficiency, please! / And get to work”) bedecked with John Bonham drums and dirty synthesiser. The opening track of Post was, apparently, the sound of Björk telling her brother to buck his ideas up. Co-written with the Bond composer David Arnold and Jah Wobble, Play Dead keys into the era’s revival of interest in soundtracks and easy listening, but never sounds like a pastiche: the song is too dramatic and powerful. Play Dead (1993)ījörk’s first two albums often feel like scrapbooks of musical ideas floating around the non-Britpop 90s: house, trip-hop, the Chemical Brothers’ distorted breaks, Aphex-y electronica.

Bjork debut era b sides