Being Bjork - November 2004

Bjork is not like the rest of us. She is a pixie. She is a fairie songstress. She is an Icelandic art-freak. One does not imagine Bjork doing everyday pedestrian tasks, like, say, taking out the garbage or shopping for groceries. Instead, she exists in most peopleıs imagination as a sort of stylized mythological creature, transcending mere celebrity status and moving in unimaginably elite artistic circles. While most of us are worrying about paying our rent or counting our carbs, Bjork is somewhere out there doing something impossibly weird and creative, like tramping around volcanoes on the Canary Islands while singing into a tape recorder or making a baby with Matthew Barney, pausing every few years to release a record and shock the world with her ever-evolving personal style. Medulla, her latest release. is made up entirely of human voices that are sampled, processed, and sequenced, and it features collaborations with the likes of Japanese beatboxer Dokaka, former Faith No More front man Mike Patton, the esteemed songwriter Robert Wyatt and both the London and Icelandic Choirs. And despite what you might think of the infamous Swan Dress or the over-the-top melodrama of Dancer in the Dark, Bjork remains a true original, always choosing to follow her own artistic impulses wherever they might lead her and waiting patiently for the rest of the world to catch up.

T. Cole Rachel sits down with her to discuss the perils of eccentricity.

TCR: Medulla is really a headphones kind of record, there's so much stuff going on in it. The more you listen to it, the more of the little intricacies you can hear pop out in the music. As a producer and arranger, how difficult was it to conduct all of these people and assemble all of these little parts?

Bjork: Well, because I had done this kind of work before, I had some idea of what I was getting into. You just had to keep trying stuff out to see what would happen, and sometimes things wouldn't work. You just keep playing with it and keep trying, and it's sort of like, just, noodling. It's like when you do embroidery or something...you slowly stitch these pieces together.

TCR: If someone were to listen to all of your records in chronological order, there seems a very natural, almost organic, progression taking place from one record to the next. In a lot of ways, this record seems a very natural leap from the last one.

Bjork: Yeah, it sort of felt like that to me. I had done the more aggressive beats on Homogenic, then with Vespertine were the kind of quiet, passive beats and choirs came in, so it made sense with Medulla to wipe out the beats completely and let the choirs grow...and then take over. So, it sort of happened quite naturally.

TCR: Have you thought much about how these songs would go over in a live setting?

Bjork: I am tempted to just go right away and do another album. Then, after I've done that, I might think about shows. I think to be able to do it right, it's gonna be a little tricky...because I'll want to work with a big group of singers and choirs. It might take a while for us to figure out how to do it, and I might have to rearrange the songs somewhat, but I've done that before. Post was an album I did that was pretty difficult to play live, but we managed to do it, though it took a lot of work. When I toured Post I had two albums worth of material that would work with the band setup we had, so I feel like I might need another album of this sort of material to be able to sit back and start arranging for a live concert.

TCR: Do you find that your inclination now is to go in a completely different direction?

Bjork: I think it will be a natural progression of Medulla, but, you know, I'm not saying it's gonna be all vocal. It could be that some instruments will creep in there. I'm just gonna see what happens.

TCR: Before you made this record you spent a lot of time putting together your box set and live albums. Was it strange to spend such a long, concentrated period of time doing nothing but thinking about your own body of work?

Bjork: I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I got pregnant, so my nesting instincts kicked in and it made sense to stay home and do that. I normally wouldn't enjoy that sort of thing, but it felt good to become a kind of homebody librarian and line things up and put them in alphabetical order.

TCR: Do you find that your approach to making songs has changed over the years?

Bjork: I think I've just become much better at naturally organizing accidents. A few years ago I was much more concerned about when I would write songs and how I would record them and stuff, and now I have the luxury of working in my home and I can just work on music whenever I feel like it. The whole process is a lot more natural. I think the part of me that documents myself is much more understanding now. Let's put it that way.

TCR: You performed at the Olympics this year. How crazy was that?

Bjork: It wasn't, actually. I'd gone to Greece about a week before the Olympics and everyone was saying things about how the Greeks were gonna blow it and how nothing was really ready and they weren't prepared enough. But I got to watch as people were cleaning the streets and putting up flags and it was amazing to see this whole nation really focus and pull together. And, you know, the opening ceremonies are, like, four hours long and I was just three minutes, so I felt like a fly on the wall, kind of. I was just really touched to see seventy-thousand people proving against all odds that they could do it. So, it was like everyone was crying and stuff and it was just really emotional. I felt just like..a witness, you know? A witness getting to watch a small country do something really big.

TCR: Bjork, I'm not sure if you realize this, but a lot of people seem to think you're kind of weird. You're often portrayed in the media as this very eccentric personality, which may of may not be true, and it kind of makes it hard to imagine you as having a normal life. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions people might have about you as a person?

Bjork Hmm, well, I don't know. This idea of eccentricity...I think a lot of it might come from the English press. They always wrote a lot of stuff about me when I was in The Sugarcubes. I think it just has a lot to do with perceptionŠ and, you know, they're the ones who came up with The Lord of the Rings, which is full of elves and goblins and stuff like that...and they kind of like to think that Iceland is a place where these things happen. It's kind of cute, but also kind of wacky, to always be the object of that sort of thing. I hate to burst people's bubble, but back in Iceland, you know, we make toast in the morning and we go to the bathroom. All that mundane stuff. And I've never seen an elf in my life! I don't really know, to be honest, since I've been in the press in some way since the age of 11, because I made a record in Iceland, that I'm...well, I realized early on that what they're gonna write about you and who you actually are are two totally different things. They aren't ever gonna be the same thing, and I'm OK with that. I'm just glad at this point that people are still interested in me.

TCR: Do you spend most of your time in Iceland?

Bjork: Iıd say itıs about 50/50.

TCR: Are you able to have a pretty normal life when you're in New York?

Bjork: Um, yeah, I think so. I actually found a place out in the forest, about 30 minutes from town, and I have a studio here in my house. I'm out here with my baby girl and she goes to kindergarten and we go shop for food and cook and stuff. We're pretty self-sufficient, I'd say. I go into the big city about once a week. I like to put on heels and lipstick and go hear really loud techno music and enjoy all things urban. Because I like urban stuff too, you know? I must say that on a daily basis I'm more of a rural person. But on a Friday night, there's nothing like going into town.

TCR: You've always been very closely connected to the art world and have worked with a lot of amazing visual artists. Do you think you'd be making some kind of visual art if you weren't making music?

Bjork: I have thought about it, actually. There were moments, like, when I was making Vespertine when I thought about doing the visuals myself, but I really don't have it in me. I think that in order to do something you, well, it's not that you have to be born to do it, but...I think you shouldn't have too many affairs from your life's work. Like, I felt bad when I acted in that movie because I'm not an actress, I'm a musician. I think I can I can be a good sidekick for people who are doing visual stuff, but I would be an awful visual artist...and I'm not being humble, I just know that I would. But I'm actually OK being somebody's sidekick.

TCR: The last time I was home visiting my family in Oklahoma I saw a drag queen performing one of your songs. That's how you know you've really made it, when even Midwestern drag queens are doing you.

Bjork: Really? I've heard that they do something in San Francisco where they have competitions to see who can do the best Bjork song...and I don't know what to say even, except that I'm flattered and happy that people are that interested. I mean, I've always thought that my music was so serious...and incredibly stupid and silly and sad and happy and angry and...you know, the whole spectrum. I always thought that people often missed the point that I am sometimes very silly. I'm not sure that a lot of people get it, but a lot of the lyrics on my albums are kind of just...taking the piss, you know? I mean, a lot of the lyrics are very serious, totally serious, with not a grain of humor...but not always. I like it though, the performing thing, because it means that something about what I do is alive.

Medulla is out now on Atlantic Records.