Bjork, Post Full Album Zip
Lillia Iniguez
Post is the second studio album by Icelandic singer Björk.[a] It was released on 7 June 1995 by One Little Indian Records. Continuing the style developed on her first album Debut (1993), Björk conceived of Post as a bolder and more extroverted set of songs than its predecessor, featuring an eclectic mixture of electronic and dance styles such as techno, trip hop, IDM, and house, but also ambient, jazz, industrial, and experimental music. Björk produced Post herself with co-producers including Nellee Hooper, 808 State's Graham Massey, and former Massive Attack member Tricky. She wrote most of the songs after moving to London, and intended the album to reflect her new life in the city.
The album reached number one in Iceland, number two in the United Kingdom and number 32 in the United States. It was certified gold in New Zealand and Sweden, and platinum in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK. Six singles were released: "Army of Me", "Isobel", "It's Oh So Quiet", "Hyperballad", "Possibly Maybe", and "I Miss You", with three reaching the UK top 10. Their accompanying music videos were noted for their surrealism, themes of nature and technology, and artistic development of the medium. A remix album titled Telegram was released in 1996.
During the album's commercial peak, Björk was affected by media attention and Post's promotional tour. She survived a murder attempt, and caused controversy by assaulting a reporter. Björk would relocate to Spain away from the press and produce her next album, Homogenic (1997). Considered an important exponent of art pop, Post has been praised by critics for its ambition and timelessness. It was named one of the greatest albums of 1995 by numerous publications, and has since been named one of the greatest albums of all time by publications including Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone.
"I always use the word 'promiscuous' for this album. I just wanted to try to work with several people. It was very much also reflecting my life at the time. Kinda big city, big lights, Trafalgar Square kind of energy. I was going to a lot of clubs, I was meeting a lot of new friends that ended up being friends for life, actually. I was very extrovert. [I'd been an introvert] all my life and then suddenly I was very extroverted, very extroverted friends, [...] being over the top. But really enjoying it. But maybe also knowing that you didnt want to do that forever. You know, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing."
Björk released her previous studio album Debut in 1993. At that time, she had moved to London.[6] The production of Debut was "long and laborious", as Björk sought to fully realise her compositional ideas from the past. After its release, she was free to concentrate on her present life for new musical clues for her following album.[7] She contacted producer Nellee Hooper who had worked with her on her previous album.[7] He refused initially, encouraging her to produce the album herself, but agreed when she insisted.[8] However, Björk agreed to co-produce along with other enlisted producers; "to make it stay fresh, she had to think about other people being involved".[8] With Hooper's confirmation, Björk commenced work on the album in late 1994 at the Compass Point Studios in Nassau.[8][9] The picturesque locale inspired Björk to meld the recording process with the exotic natural environment. Biographer Mark Pytlik writes: "The tales surrounding these recording sessions are appropriately evocative".[10] For example, Rolling Stone wrote that for her vocals: "Björk extended her mic cord to a beach so she could sing to the sea".[11] Additionally, the first version of "Cover Me" was recorded entirely from a nearby cave.[10]
For this record, Björk incorporated shelved songs she wrote in Manchester with 808 State's Graham Massey, which had preceded the recording sessions for Debut.[10] These included "Army of Me" and "The Modern Things", which had become live staples over the summer, and did not need to undergo extensive transformations at Compass Point.[10] Björk explained her decision to include "Army of Me" in Post rather than Debut: "I was gonna make it as a part of Debut but for me [that album] was a more gentle energy and Post was more raw, more brutal. And maybe you can say that Debut was London but Post was more a little bit Manchester, a little bit Scotland, a little bit Bristol. So it was not so sleek. At that time, anything that came from London was a little bit sleek, and people from Scotland and Manchester and Bristol looked down at all things sleek, they wanted things to be raw. When I use the word 'sleek' I actually don't use it as a bad word, I think it worked really well on Debut, to kinda glue everything together. But I think on Post I was like: 'okay, I've put aside this raw energy, now I want to bring it in."[5] Massey stated: "With 'Army of Me' we wanted to try something that was quite hard and techno-y. I'm not sure how she wrote those lyrics so fast but I remember that song being almost instantaneous. [...] We kind of knocked that off in one day and then started on 'The Modern Things' the same day and finished that the next".[10]
The track that underwent the most extensive change was "I Miss You", an old song from the Debut era. Howie Bernstein gave the song its "Latin-tinged [rhythm]".[16] Back in London, Björk contacted "old standby" Talvin Singh to record additional percussion parts for it.[16] Fellow former Sugarcubes member Einar Örn Benediktsson was also contacted to play the trumpet on "Enjoy".[17] English sessionist Gary Barnacle was enlisted to play the saxophone.[18] Although he had not been involved in music for a long time, Brazilian composer Eumir Deodato immediately agreed to participate on the album at Björk's request.[16] Björk decided to contact him after being impressed by his arrangements of a rare Milton Nascimento song called "Travessia".[16] Deodato's presence as composer and conductor "immediately bolstered" "Hyperballad", "You've Been Flirting Again" and "Isobel".[19] This addition of strings, brass and percussion elements gave Post the balance Björk felt her original recordings had lacked.[19] "It's Oh So Quiet" was the last track to be recorded.[20] By the time the album was finished in April 1995, the list of co-producers included Björk, Hooper, Bernstein, Massey, and Tricky.[19] Björk has said: "The people I collaborated with were all people I was hanging out with in clubs in London. I had known them all for a while before we ended up working together."[20]
Björk's website described Post as "a bit of a bolder side of [Björk], who now had ventured all the way from Iceland to England, and was exploring the faster pace and big city life that this new country brought. This album became influenced of that and became more adventurous and club-friendly as a contrast to the shy first album, Debut."[22] Likewise, The Guardian wrote in 2011 that "Post tapped into the vortex of multicultural energy that was mid-90s London where she had relocated, and where strange hybrids such as jungle and trip-hop were bubbling".[23] Noted for its eclectic nature,[24] Björk described Post as "musically promiscuous" and "spastic".[20] Peter Tabakis of Pretty Much Amazing said that it has a protean form and "wide emotional palette".[25] While the album is recognised as an experimental work, it is also characterised by its accessibility and pop framework.[26] Post has been described as art pop,[27] experimental pop,[28] and avant-pop.[29]
The Rolling Stone review stated that Björk "[foraged] for inspiration in the soundscapes of orchestral jazz, ambient techno and classical".[21] Influences of jazz fusion were also noted by a contemporary review by The New York Times.[35] In 1996, when asked about the album's musical influences, Björk stated: "I'm influenced by everything. By books, by the weather, by the water, by my shoes, if they're comfortable or not. Everything."[36]
The album opens with "Army of Me", an aggressive[40] song with industrial rock,[35] and trip hop influences.[39] It incorporates a looped drum sample of Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks".[41] Dedicated to Björk's younger brother,[20] the song's lyrics are, according to Björk herself, "about telling someone who is full of self-pity and doesn't have anything together to get a life and stand up"; as she sings: "And if you complain once more/You'll meet an army of me!"[39] "Hyperballad", which incorporates a spectrum of electronic and orchestral styles, has been described as "a love song penned by Aphex Twin".[31] NME wrote that its music "altered from gentle folktronica to drum and bass-tinted acid house"; an attempt to reflect the song's lyrics, which are about "the art of not forgetting about yourself".[42] In them, Björk describes living at the top of a mountain and going to a cliff at sunrise. She throws objects off the cliff while pondering her own suicide. The ritual allows her to exorcise darker thoughts and return to her partner.[43] The track is followed by "The Modern Things", a song that, in a magical realist tone,[44] "playfully posits the theory that technology has always existed, waiting in mountains for humans to catch up".[45] Interview described it in 1995 as a "spooky tune", noting "the odd scratchings at the end" of the track.[46] In a startling shift in style, the big band track "It's Oh So Quiet" covers a German composition made famous by Betty Hutton.[40] It has been described as "a palate-cleanser during the course of the record".[30] Björk included the song "just to make it absolutely certain that the album would be as schizophrenic as possible, that every song would be a shock".[20]
"Possibly Maybe" is an ambient dub track that fuses trip-hop and chill-out music.[30][49] Björk has said that it was the first unhappy song she wrote, stating in 1997: "That was very hard for me. [...] I was ashamed writing a song that was not giving hope".[54] Its lyrics document the various stages of Björk's ill-fated relationship with Stéphane Sednaoui.[55] With the track, De Vries "create[d] a vinyl-crackling ambience, full of glissando strings and leaden, muted bass.[9] The slide guitar heard in the background of the song was originally intended to be its focal point, as Björk initially strived for an "ambient country" sound inspired by Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game".[55] "I Miss You" was described in 1997 as an "amalgam of styles, with electronic drums melding into African bongos mixed with jazzy horn playing".[56] A house music number, its "horn-infused Afro-Cuban strains [...] reflect the romantic whimsy of [its] lyrics".[17] Björk wrote "Cover Me", one of the quieter moments on the album, to her co-producer Nellee Hooper after he agreed to participate in the making of Post. She has said: "I guess I was trying to make fun of myself, how dangerous I manage sometimes to make album making. And trying to lure him into it. But it is also a admiration thing from me to him".[20] The album ends with the experimental "Headphones",[31] an ambient track.[57] Featuring "just-for-headphones studio tricks", it has been described as "a chiming, somnolent dip into Björk's heavy-lidded pre-dream state".[12] Its lyrics were written as a thank you to Graham Massey, who would make compilation cassettes for Björk.[20] She also stated: "But, of course, it is also a love letter to sound. The sound of sound. Resonances, frequencies, silences and such... a music-worship thing".[20]
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