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.
This is a DualDisc, which contains a CD on one side of the disc and a DVD on the other.
Recording information: 1995.
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.
What the critics say...
Rolling Stone (10/31/02, p.140) - Ranked # 43 in Rolling Stone's "Women in Rock: The 50 Essential Albums" - "...[A] strange, affecting work..."
Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.61) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's."
Rolling Stone (1/25/96, p.41) - Tied for #7 in the 1996 Critics' Poll.
Rolling Stone (6/29/95, pp.41-42) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...POST comes up as victorious and gallant as any of her Viking forefathers. Chock-full of curious noises, mesmerizing vocals and musical surprises, POST provides a much-needed escape route from alternative rock's dull offerings of late..."
Spin (9/99, pp.120-1) - Ranked #7 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s."
Spin (12/95, p.63) - Ranked #13 on Spin's list of the `20 Best Albums Of '95.'
Spin (7/95, p.72) - 8 - Very Good - "...Bjork is a bit more controlled this time around, so when she does let loose with the PSYCHO screams...her extremes pack more impact....Whether her accompaniment is punk guitars, disco beats, jazz horns, or symphonic strings, Bjork always comes across as her own wacky and seductively weird creation."
Entertainment Weekly (6/23/95, p.55) - "...the ex-Sugarcube finds a bizarre and irresistible connecting point between industrial-disco, ambient-trance, and catchy synth pop..." - Rating: A+
Q (7/95, p.114) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...avoid[s] both the usual follow-up pitfalls of repetition and encroaching commerciality....she's still finding the room to embrace the often convoluted twists and turns of emotion..."
Vibe (12/99, p.162) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century
Melody Maker (12/23-30/95, pp.66-67) - Ranked #48 on Melody Maker's list of 1995's `Albums Of The Year.'
Melody Maker (6/3/95, p.35) - Recommended - "...sonically, it's DEBUT with the edges filed down...But...the joyful news from the front is that, below the suspect surface, there is lava..."
Musician (8/95, p.85) - "...The fluid textures fashioned by our heroine...have a subliminal resonance that might undermine a less assured performer, although its hard to imagine anything upstaging her..."
Village Voice (2/20/96) - Ranked #7 in Village Voice's 1995 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll.
Mojo (Publisher) (p.60) - Ranked #53 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[B]old, cheeky, emotionally complex and musically ambitious."
NME (Magazine) (12/23-30/95, pp.22-23) - Ranked #35 in NME's `Top 50 Albums Of The Year' for 1995.
NME (Magazine) (6/10/95, p.46) - 7 (out of 10) - "...a bit ethnic, extremely mysterious, a tad on the ooh-blimey-what-was-that??! side and a comprehensive summary of all that is good, grim and unnaturally groovy about one woman and her various mates' offbeat musical world..."
