"In many ways, Homogenic, released in September 1997, was the sound of Björk retreating from the spotlight after the huge success of Debut and Post – albeit in a combative way. Having lived in London throughout her initial solo success and after much-publicised relationships with Tricky and Goldie, she moved to Malaga in Spain and then back home to Iceland to work on the songs that would eventually become Homogenic. From the album cover – Björk representing a king of warrior mother-figure who, as she put it, fought wars with love – down to the stripping back of her sound to just beats and strings, this was no outlandish bid for more fame but, rather a fight back against the extraneous forces that fame had brought with it.

The emotional spectrum is completed by the almost heart-stoppingly beautiful Unravel, which finds Björk conjuring up the image of love, if left untended, unravelling like a ball of yarn, the hope being that it can be remade or reshaped into something new. Musically, it strips everything out to leave funereal church organ, a distorted saxophone sigh and a distant metronomic beat. It was, to my young ears, almost uncomfortably exposed and it was this ease with which she was able to talk about emotions that connected with me. I felt buttoned up and repressed at that point in my life and Björk – all freewheeling energy and with a brilliantly fuck-you attitude ("I'm no fucking buddhist, but this is enlightenment" goes a line in Alarm Call) – had managed to unlock something that made me realise not only that there's joy to be found in all sorts of music, but that it's a good idea to take risks. I was drawn to Homogenic for a reason I couldn't fathom at that time, but it represented escapism, alien emotions and a route through which I could make discoveries of my own."  

- Michael Cragg, Pitchfork