Intimacy (2001)

All This Time is a moving record of an exclusive live set performed by Sting and his 13-piece band at the end of their two-year Brand New Day tour. Following a week of intensive rehearsals and preparations for a global Web cast, the low-key concert was scheduled to be broadcast live to the world from Sting?s home in Tuscany on the evening of September 11, 2001. As is depicted in the accompanying 70-minute documentary, following intense agonising by Sting and his associates, the concert went ahead as mark of respect to the victims of the atrocities of this day.

After cathartic statements like Homogenic, the role of Selma in Dancer in the Dark, and the film's somber companion piece, Selmasongs, it's not surprising that Björk's first album in four years is less emotionally wrenching. But Vespertine isn't so much a departure from her previous work as a culmination of the musical distance she's traveled; within songs like the subtly sensual "Hidden Place" and "Undo" are traces of Debut and Post's gentle loveliness, as well as Homogenic and Selmasongs' reflective, searching moments. Described by Björk as "about being on your own in your house with your laptop and whispering for a year and just writing a very peaceful song that tiptoes," Vespertine's vocals seldom rise above a whisper, the rhythms mimic heartbeats and breathing, and a pristine, music-box delicacy unites the album into a deceptively fragile, hypnotic whole…