Bjork - POST
There is absolutely no reason I picked this, it was there and then it was in the CD player. Probably a good record for a Monday..particularly after an introspective and weird weekend, There's layered sweeping sounds on this that seem to lull me to a spiritual higher ground. Track 7. Isobel in particular is comforting, like Bjork was my mum and my best friend all at once. This album takes me back to when I was 16 and it reminds me of my first boyfriends sister, she kind of looked like Bjork in a more rural town Australian kind of way. She used to make her own clothes, wear striped tights with velvet skirts and drew elaborate pictures of elves and faeries..is this all getting a bit too weird?! I remember listening to POST when she first bought it...CD's were never less than $30 in those days so when you bought one as a teenager it was a big deal. I sat at their huge old wooden dinner table that could easily fit 12 people on it and we listened and talked. it was dusk and outside it was cool but not cold. Even though I went to my boyfriends all the time, I was happy when he wandered off and did his own thing while I hung out with his sister. His sister was so sweet and weird, the kind of weird and sweet you think must be an act...but it was real and since I never had a sister I always adopted other peoples..
Army of Me starts the CD and I know I used it as an anthem for a little while...its empowering when you listen to it on headphones...just you and someone else's voice.
Hyper_ballad is for me the stand out...I loved this song back then and even though I haven't listened to this album in 4 years or something I remember the words and how I felt like this song made sense from her imagination but not to me...but today...it makes sense in a whole new way. when she talks about throwing things from the top of the mountain...and she says ' i go through all this, before you wake up, so i can feel happier, to feel safe again with you...'
i get that now. I do that. I have rituals that I need to do everyday so I can be ok and not nuts..like I need to get out and run or go to the gym and I need to check inane internet gossip websites to feel ok.
I went to see Bjork that same year..1996...she was supported by two girls on keyboards and she was late on stage. The gig was good but there were these hideous platform shoe wearing trippers in front of me that looked old enough to be my mother (too many nights out on the stilletto's perhaps? they were squint worthy bad looking) who used the considerable mosh/crush as an opportunity to stomp out their aggression like it was some bogan indoor netball game.
I actually bought this for myself about 5 years ago when I was living in another state, in another life but obviosuly needed to hear the sound of my mum/best friend again..this time though I bought it for $15...
I'd forgotten how good this album was.
-K-
