The project at the center of Björk's new CD, Vespertine, is what the punk/reggae band Bad Brains once called "soul craft." Björk crafts the spiritual component of her fabulous robot, the woman-machine she has been slowly building since her last CD with the Sugarcubes, It's-It (1992).

For the most part, It's-It--which is a compilation of remixes of the Sugarcubes' music by the Sugarcubes and guests, like Todd Terry and Tommy D--was a mess, and not the beautiful mess of the band's previous CD, Stick Around for Joy (1992). Like all births, It's-It was simply messy: a raw mishmash of live instruments and electronic beats. (Indeed, It's-It is much like J. G. Ballard's novel Crash: a sticky mess of metal shards, wasted sperm, blood, mucus, cooling fluid.) What was born on the flawed CD was the baby-bot that, a year later, Björk gave shape, features, and motion to on her first solo CD, Debut.

On Post (1995), her robot received its basic nervous system. On Homogenic (1997), her robot became an erotic animal--a process that was detailed in the video for the song "All Is Full of Love." On Vespertine, Björk finally molds the soul of her erotic robot. This, however, is not merry work; it's eerie night work, the work of fallen angels. In fact, I much prefer the charged eroticization of her robot over this: the lugubrious insertion of the thing-in-itself into The Erotic Thing.

On Homogenic, we saw the metal shell of the robot become soft and sensuous, and the metallic apparatus that automatically pumped lubricant throughout its mechanical system become a throbbing heart, an organ of desire. Her robot was in heat on the song "The Hunter," whose video showed Björk (woman-machine) transforming into a jungle cat. This was the most dazzling stage of her creation.

Vespertine is not thrilling, but certainly necessary for the completion of her masterwork. What the robot obtains at the end of the new CD is what she calls "magical sensitivity" in the song "Cocoon." It's now aware of the otherworlds, of heaven and hell.

Vespertine, which means "occurring in the evening," is related to the word vespers, which is a church service that takes place at dusk, or just after sunset. Indeed, this is the hour when souls are made, not in the middle of the day but here in the dark, under the wandering stars.