Debut Live

Debut Live is an adventurously acoustic companion to the original studio album’s globetrotting rhythms and modest house beats. Rather than stick to rock band staples like guitar and drums for her MTV Unplugged performance (which covers most of the album), Björk explored all manner of weird, wonderful, and worldwide instruments, from Indonesian gamelan and Indian tabla to glass harmonica and waterphone.

Most tracks were previously released in 1997 on Celebrating Wood And Metal, an exclusive CD for Björk’s Telegraph fanclub magazine where she mused on the joys of acoustic instruments:

Because Unplugged was recorded in one day in one place I didn’t have to work within the practicalities of touring. For now things didn’t have to be mobile. I felt like a kid in a toy store. I could get Oliver Lake to do Anchor Song and Aeroplane with me, Evelyn Glennie came and played the marimba, Corky Hale came from LA to play one song. We got in contact with a man who rents out strange keyboards and we hired a lot of them, a duck organ that makes squeaking sounds, a harpsichord and a small organ. We found a man who plays glasses. It was madness, but what can you do when they tell you there are no limits.