Vespertine by Björk

Vespertine, Björk's fourth studio album, arrived in August 2001, and after the storming beats of Homogenic it turns the volume way down and pulls the curtains shut. She wanted something minimal, intricate and domestic, and started work on it while filming Dancer in the Dark, bringing in Opiate, Console and the duo Matmos alongside harpist Zeena Parkins.

The palette is all glass and lace: harp, celesta, clavichord, strings and custom-built music boxes, over "microbeats" she and Matmos stitched together from everyday noises like shuffled cards and cracking ice. The songs grew out of her new relationship with Matthew Barney, and they're about sex, intimacy and love. The videos for "Pagan Poetry" and "Cocoon" were banned on MTV for their sexual imagery, and "Hidden Place" was the other single. It reached number 19 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK, and critics have since placed it among the best albums ever made.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.