The album opens with "Hidden Place", which features a soprano section and strings, "over the top of a warm, intimate melody". Michael Hubbard of musicOMH felt the track was reminiscent of "Homogenic"'s "Hunter", but less focused on the beats. "NME" called it progressive folk, while "Drowned in Sound" wrote it was electro. Björk sings about "how two people can create a paradise just by uniting", as she intones: "I'm so close to tears/And so close to/Simply calling you up/And simply suggesting/We go to that hidden place". "Cocoon" is "based around an exploratory bassline and beats that sound like fingertips on skin". Discussing the glitch nature of the track, Björk said, "when you take technology and use the areas where it breaks, where it's faulty, you're entering a mystery zone where you can't control it". Lyrically revolving around making love, the song alternates between metaphors like "Who would have known/That a boy like him/Would have entered me lightly/Restoring my blisses", and explicit lines such as "He slides inside/Half awake, half asleep" and "Gorgeousness/He's still inside me". According to Michael Cragg of "The Guardian", the song "best represents the album's sense of heavy-lidded, post-coital hibernation". Björk sings a breathy, "whispered, near-cracking falsetto" on the track.