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Baker's Dozen

A Safe Place For Me: Jesca Hoop's 13 Favourite Records
Diva Harris , August 14th, 2019 08:25

Ahead of her performance at Green Man this weekend, Jesca Hoop guides Diva Harris through her 13 favourite albums, from Björk to Dylan, Cat Stevens and Kate Bush

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Björk – Homogenic
I found this record when I living in Arizona, working in this survival programme for wayward youth. It was all high mountain deserts etcetera. It was a very strange juxtaposition - this record is incredibly lush, it’s very sensual, it’s sexual, it is emotive, and I’d never heard anything like it before. I don’t think the world had ever heard electronic music that way. I think that she was pioneering those types of micro-beats, and also, there’s just no other voice like Björk’s, you know. She absolutely a one of a kind. I think that’s one thing that’s a thread between all of these artists – is there’s no-one else like any of them, they’re pioneering, and opening the gates for others, and Björk absolutely does that. All of the female songwriters that I’m drawn to are ones that are singing from their emotional body, and letting that transform them as singers. And I guess that I’d never heard anyone sing like Björk on the song ‘Jóga’. It’s nothing that I would ever endeavour to do – I recognise her vocal abilities as something completely other than my own, so I would never sing along - but I’m intrigued by her musculature and her own very singular voice.