Product Description

TELEGRAM finds Bjork and her comrades polishing the rusty surfaces of pop music, creating new musical formations that glimmer and shine. These songs have been redecorated with thegracious elan that we have come to expect from this charismatic chanteuse. New installations of drum-and-bass textures,orchestral arrangements, trip-hop beats and hip-hop samplesare overlaid on the songs from POST, building upon their subtle post-modern beauty.
The Brodksy Quartet offers a modern-classical intepretation of "Hyperballad". "You're Flirting Again" gains a lush orchestration. "Headphones", by contrast, now features a sparse, tundra-like soundscape. The one new song, "My Spine", features Bjork crooning over a primitive backdrop of mystical chimes and bells, creating an organic incantation that sounds miles away from any territory thatpop music has traversed thus far.

Track Listing

1. Possibly Maybe
2. Hyperballad
3. Enjoy - Outcast
4. My Spine
5. I Miss You
6. Isobel
7. You've Been Flirting Agai
8. Cover Me
9. Army Of Me
10. Headphones

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31590 in Music
• Released on: 1999-08-31
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Icelandic iconoclast is a past master of deconstructing her studio recordings, and here she plays an active role in helping a crew of re-mixers and guest artistes get medieval with tracks off 1995's Post. Trip-hop, jungle, and industrial flavours will draw the Tricky crowd, and Brodsky Quartet puts a string-driven spin on "Hyperballad", but it's the lush Deodata treatment of "Isobel" that'll make your head spin. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews

How to remix properly
Bjork is renowned for reworkings of her songs, both in terms of live performances (The Vespertine Live album is phenomenal) and remixes, and this is probably where you'll find the best and most-diverse collection of remixes. I was quite dissapointed by the remixes of tracks off Debut that I heard, and as Post is my least favourite Bjork record I didn't expect anything special from this collection. However, I now regard this a significant part of the Bjork oeuvre. The Evelyn Glennie version of My Spine stands out, partially as it isn't on the UK version of Post, but mostly because of its simultaneous expression of violence and tenderness (so typically Bjork). The remix of Headphones (I forget who did it) is deeper and darker than the original, and, like the original, definitely deserves to be listened to on headphones. There's just so much in there.
This is far from just a cash-cow or a chance for Bjork's mates to get an airing. It's set the benchmark that all remix albums have to reach, and the only one that i've found since that i've enjoyed as much is Recoloured by Nils Petter Molvaer (the reworkings of his Solid Ether album).
As an afterthought, I also found going back to Post much more rewarding after listening to Telegram.

As Remix albums go ...
You’ve got to hand it to Björk. Even when she is involved in schemes with more of a whiff of “cash-cow” about them than others, she is still savvy enough to give it an idiosyncratic twist that will let you forgive her instantly. It also helps that often the results aren’t too bad either. "Debut’s" remix EP, "The Best Mixes From The Album “Debut” For People Who Don’t Buy White Labels", was given limited fanfare and a paper sleeve and her later ‘Greatest Hits’ package received two incarnations (a single CD compiled by fans via web vote and a thirty-five track set spanning twenty five years). The most successful of these cash-ins would prove to be this, the remix EP for "Post", involving an eclectic bunch of collaborators and music mates, providing Björk with her most experimental release to date. If you thought Post was diverse, be prepared for something incredibly different altogether …

Of course, remix EPs defy concepts and thematic allusions that most people would write about concerning albums, so much must be said about Björk’s choice of music aficionados that pepper the album in all varying genres and sounds. In the classical corner we have the Brodsky Quartet, who give “Hyperballad” a riveting workout, and trusted collaborator Eumir Deodato, who gives us a luscious live lounge performance of “Isobel” and the epic swoon of “You’ve Been Flirting Again” in his and Björk’s own re-workings respectively. In the avant-dance arena, we have Mark Bell’s spaced out version of “Possibly Maybe” and Graham Massey’s techno-stomp through “Army Of Me”, and for the urban market we have Dobie and Rodney P giving “I Miss You” a laidback hip-hop dub, as well as Dillinja sending the bats in “Cover Me” into a junglist frenzy. The rest of the soundscapes involve industrial techno (Outcast’s brutal “Enjoy” remix), menacing minimalism (Mika Vainio’s sparse “Headphones”) and some exhaust pipes (“My Spine”, a B side performed alongside percussionist Evelyn Glennie), all to varying effect.

As stated earlier, if "Post" summoned up an image of Björk trying to corner every market with each song, "Telegram" would be its extreme niche-plumbing equivalent. What makes "Telegram" an enchanting listen is that all of "Post’s" musical elements are present and correct, but they are blown out to such an extreme as to turn the songs into different beasts entirely, all the while without sacrificing the original source material. So “Enjoy” turns into an electrified mosh pit, Outcast’s Richard Brown and Beaumont Hannant providing a sublime example of the dark pleasures Björk’s lyrics sing of on the album (here she is reduced to little more than a squeal). “You’ve Been Flirting Again” transforms from a cautionary lament into an obsessive mood piece thanks to Björk’s own production and “Hyperballad” climbs further up the mountain with little more than a cello, two violins and a viola. And whilst some pieces pay dividends, others aren’t nearly as satisfying.

“My Spine’s” inclusion is a curious one, for example, not because of its being a B side but more to do with its being a lot more winsome and slight than the meatier material on offer. Graham Massey reworks “Army Of Me” into a dull march with not much else going for it and Dobie’s “I Miss You”, though well put together, rather misses the point, Björk’s maniacal delivery replaced by a laconic, less-interesting wail and a rap. Much better are Dillinja’s jungle excursion, using the bats from “Cover Me’s” original demo, and Vainio’s nightmarish rework of “Headphones”, the latter probably best listened safe at home. As remix albums go, it’s a notch above the rest, and at least Björk has enlisted people who seem to have a better grasp of what a remix can be, but it’s better to approach this Telegram with caution before you open it.

wow
this album is definately not your average bjork. It gives these songs a delicious twist the remixes are all amazingly done not a bad one among them, if you want to hear drum and bass merged with bjork or something strange like that, i suggest you give this a listen, at the moment this is my favorite bjork album out of all of them. Including selmas songs, sugarcubes albums, gling-glo, and all her other studio albums, anyway you get the picture if you like bjork you will not be dissapointed by this in any way its amazing, especailly the covers of hyperballad and isobel with string quartets!.