Post

Personnel includes: Bjork (vocals, organ, keyboards); Jim Couza (hammered dulcimer); Rob Smissen (viola); Tony Pleeth (cello); Gary Barnacle (soprano saxophone); Maurice Murphy, Stuart Brooks, Einar Orn (trumpet); Guy Sigsworth (harpsichord); Tricky, Marius De Vries, Graham Massey (keyboards, programming); Talvin Singh (percussion); Lenny Franchi, Howie Bernstein (programming); Marcus Dravs (sound effects). Producers: Bjork, Nellee Hooper, Graham Massey, Tricky, Howie Bernstein. Engineers include: Al Fisch, Howie Bernstein, Steve Price. POST, Bjork's second release as a solo artist, mines the fertile soil of the eclectic musical terrain of post-modern pop. The album throbs in and out of ambient cadences with techno beats, slips into showtune theatrics, then reels back to the dance floor. With a full plate of sounds already on the table, Bjork adds her own unique flare to the presentation, proving she is not easily pigeonholed. The lyrically-insistent opener, "Army Of Me," is a relentless electronic grind that is typical of Bjork's vibe, but POST also digs into Western music's more organic resources. "It's Oh So Quiet" may be a remake of an old Hollywood showtune, but Bjork's version transcends the song's silver screen aloofness on the strength of her delightful screams ("Zing, BOOM!!/You fall in love"). It is directly followed by "Enjoy," a lurching hypnotic nod with musical help from British trip-hop MC, Tricky; and the smooth, Bee Gees-like orchestration of "Isobel," a swooning accompaniment to strobe light bongo drums which announces that the listener is no longer at a rave, but at a disco. POST shows off Bjork's grasp of technology, history and basic pop aesthetics. Few modern rock albums have sampled so many different facets of the atypical buffet and have come up with such tasty results.