Shiny & New Turns 2: #2 "Unison" - Björk

"Born stubborn, me / will always be / before you count 123 / I will have grown my own private branch / of this tree"

For all Björk's avant-garde sensibilities and outré tastes, she's often at her best when her sonic innovation meets her love of pop. "Unison" is about as pure and expansive, and epic as a pop song gets. Perfect not just in conception, but in execution as well. The song starts a capella, before uneven but rhythmic soft bass pads form the basis for a structure that is slowly, exquisitely built up from the ground. A shining sound like reversed glass harmonica joins, then jangling bells, a sinuous synth, harp, beats like the strike of a match in snow, haunting choir pedals, and then strings - strings so icy, warm, iridescent, that they cut through everything... flesh, bone, straight to heart. And all the time Björk's (perhaps, for once) restrained vocals.

Structurally the song is very pop: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, freakout. And it's melodic. So melodic. I defy you not to be romanced and won over by that shimmering refrain ("Let's unite tonight, we shouldn't fight, embrace you tight"). It's so simple, such an ordinary and overused sentiment but expressed so frankly and with so few unnecessary frills. I am in love with Björk, musically, lyrically, conceptually, and I think her histrionics and orchestral excesses are often impeccable and totally wonderful, but here they would be pointless, and B knows that, so she reigns it in. Love is a word I cringe away from, even when I feel it most, because it is the ultimate cliché. But nothing, nothing, beats the feeling of dancing, waltzing slowly in a Mallorcan flat, standing on my boyfriend's feet, as he sings this in my ear. Best moment ever. Best song ever.