Bjork

The emotional landscapes of Bjork's music came into sharp relief at the Olympia last night, and this reviewer was swept away by an avalanche of dance beats and orchestral strains. I won't deny it: Bjork's music haunts me, and I approach it with a mixture of dread and desire. Her songs are wild meteorological events which pull you frantically in every direction; then, just when you think you're going to burst under the pressure, they suddenly soothe you with a touch of velvet snow.

Bjork brought a string section onstage with her for this gig, and they calmly pulled back their bows for The Hunter, stalked by thudding bolero beats and low-frequency rumbles. Bjork swished onstage in a short white dress covered by a long diaphanous pink shift, and though her voice sounded tentative at the beginning, it quickly built up in strength, taking flight on a string-driven slipstream. Isobel was otherworldly, a deep, hypnotic gaze into the lookingglass, while All Neon Like was a flash of self-defiance, Bjork admonishing "Don't get angry with yourself!" while the crowd roared its esteem.

Possibly Maybe tripped endearingly along, but Joga was total freefall, throwing the senses into a state of emergency. Venus As A Boy stayed well out of orbit, but Bachelorette and Human Be- haviour brought us temporarily back into the atmosphere before Violently Happy shook the ground and lifted off once again into Hyperballad. Call it Arctic orchestral techno or Icelandic classical dub, but Bjork's music is definitely not of this earth.