In 2007 Bjork released Volta. Skimming through our back pages we found this interview. Enjoy

“I met Brian Eno once in a steam room in London. I fell asleep and when I
woke up, he was sitting next to me. He told me this theory about how singers
make melodies that reflect how artistic their countries are. Countries like
England and Japan have very hierarchical structures and the notes are always
very close to each other; there are no big jumps. But people from Iceland,
for example, sing melodies that are more anarchic. I thought it was
interesting… but it could have been that I just dreamt it, you know. Maybe
I didn’t even meet him.” Bjork chuckles gently and lapses into silence.
For most of my adult life, this diminutive waif has loomed large on the
alternative music landscape as an artist of curious, otherworldly charm. And
here, for a brief moment, it seems that the Iife of the Icelandic pixie
queen might be equal to the legend; that Bjork might, as a matter of course,
fall asleep in a drowsy mist and wake to find Brian Eno has appeared,
numinous and elusive, to impart some esoteric gem about the nature of song.
Naturally, this would happen, because she is Bjork, and she seems only
marginally connected to this world. Gnashing her teeth at photographers or
turning out for the Oscars dressed as a Swan; tap dancing, screaming punk or
wailing an ocean of noise from the bottom of her tiny chest; she is
extraordinary and extraordinary things must necessarily happen to her…
ergo Brian Eno.
The truth, of course, is slightly less romantic but significantly more
robust, much like the lady herself. Though she speaks quietly on the phone,
with the sweet and doughy accent of her north European home, Bjork is clear
and thoughtful at all times. Thirty years in the music industry, beginning
with the self-titled record of 1977, has given her an immaculate polish in
her approach to interviews. She answers every question as though it is the
first time she has heard it and she peppers her responses with graceful
frankness. Her tour, her new album, her craft – these are not randomly
evoked from a witches brew, but measured artistic choices that she can
easily explain, even if the end product seems creative beyond comprehension.
Volta, for example (Bjork’s sixth solo album) is a response to Medulla,
which was a product of motherhood. “Medulla for me was really about domestic
bliss and breast-feeding and the joys of that very small universe that a
mother has with her child, but then when they get older the mother wants to
go out and have friends as well. I think Volta is about that really, wanting
to take the world on and wanting to tour and go to places that you’ve never
been before.”
Medulla, another landmark record in a career of constant reinvention, was
built almost entirely from layers of Bjork’s voice. It was impossible to
tour because, as she impishly points out, “I’ve only got one larynx,” so
from 2004 until the release of Volta this year, Bjork remained at home with
her young daughter. When she finally set about making the new album, she was
unconsciously reconstructing her own life.
“A lot of the time when you’re in the middle of it you can’t really tell
where it’s coming from. All your friends can tell, but not you, so it’s hard
for me to say what drove me…I was probably suffering a little bit from
cabin fever. It probably came from having had a baby and being tied to the
house for a long time. I was really excited about touring and I think in
many ways I wrote the music thinking more about how it would sound live than
how it would sound on the record.”
If Volta’s cover art is any indication, Bjork is a piñata, ready to burst in
Technicolor brilliance on stages across the world. She appears in a
glorious, candy-coated chicken suit, enormous blue feet extending beneath
her and a violent red backdrop behind – a far cry from the profoundly
sensual swell of her translucent breasts, which grace the cover of Medulla.
But the music of Volta sounds vastly different to the cover. For fans who
might expect a return to the joyful climbs of It’s Oh So Quiet, Volta will
disappoint. Rather, Volta’s often dark and plangent musings will defy
expectations – which is all one can reasonable expect Bjork to do. And if
this record is the sound of a new spring, it is the sound of spring on Mars.
A long-time devotee to the art of collaboration, Bjork brought in a host of
guest artists to deliver what she has called “an energetic and fun album”.
Antony Hegarty (of Antony & the Johnsons), appears alongside improv drummer
Chris Corsano, Malian kora player Toumani Diabate, Chinese pipa player Min
Xiao-Fen and a 10-piece brass band. Always curious about the cutting edge of
electronica, Bjork also invited Congolese “electro” outfit Konono No 1 to
work with her (with the traditional likembé instrument wired for sound,
Konono make beats from wholly organic sources). As she tells it, this
collaborative process was part of her return to the outside world.
“I guess 80% of the album I did on my own…it’s quite a solitary affair. I
write and sing and write lyrics and it’s very introspective,” she explains,
“80% of the album is that energy, so towards the end I’m always gagging for
some other people, and it becomes just the opposite. When I collaborate, I
don’t want to follow my rules, I want to do something wild and see where I
can meet with this other person.”
Perhaps the highest profile guest on Volta, super-producer Timbaland was
also called in to work on the record, with three of his tracks ending up on
the final product. This, it becomes clear, was a true test of Bjork’s
commitment to the collaborative process – and the submission of her artistic
will to that of another.
“I did try at first to get him involved in the concepts of Volta and all the
brass and the ideas I’ve been working on with my vocals, but he sort of sent
them back to me and said that that wouldn’t really interest him,” she
smiles, “I think, with Tim, you really have to do it his way. He’s very
macho – in the nicest way possible. He has a very primitive and productive
energy. He’d just walk into a room and in the space of three hours we’d have
four songs from scratch. He’s sort of a person who likes to work from
scratch, so you’ve got nothing that you’ve prepared and came with and it’s
just you, that’s it, and you just write a song…He’s sort of like a race
car driver – it’s very extreme, that one element, but it made me feel like a
tango dancer getting thrown around.”
Afterwards, Bjork admits, she returned to the songs for some additional
noodling:
“I wanted a bit more embroidery added in, because I’m a chick. So I sort of
sat down and added in some structure, some backing vocals, some instruments.
So we got the best of both worlds – Tim got to be a race car driver and I
got to be…embroidery woman.”
On the tour, as well as the album, Bjork has fought to maintain a feminine
presence. With so much of her music seeming to emerge from a supernatural
tide of earth mother majesty, she usually stands alone at the front of an
all-male touring band, pouring her voice across the crowd. But for this tour
– stretching ten months from end to end – Bjork was determined to expand the
sisterhood.
“The album was almost like a rehearsal for the tour. And then I started
deciding who was going to be in the band and talking to everyone and
everyone was up for it,” she explains, “I had already recorded two brass
arrangements with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, who are all male, and
then I sort of had a moment where you can see it from the outside and
thought ‘hmm, what are we missing here?'”
The answer, of course, was women, so Bjork assembled a ten-piece touring
brass section made entirely from female Icelandic horn players.
“I held auditions and found out that there were only 13 female brass players
in Iceland,” she laughs, “so I to say no to three of them, which was
actually really difficult.”
When asked why she chose Icelandic musicians, rather than American musicians
from her adopted home in New York City, she returns to the theme of
exploration versus isolation that has dominated this interview.
“I like a balance, you know. I’m very Icelandic and I always will be – I
spend half of my time there – but I’ve always fought isolation as well,
because it’s in my blood. Iceland was a colony for 600 years and it’s only
50 years ago we got independence from Denmark, you know? Part of our
independence was to actually go out and mingle with the aliens, and that’s
what I’m doing. I like to work with people from all over the world, but half
of me is always going to be very Icelandic.”
The important thing, she insists, is to keep changing, and if she stays too
long in an interior, secluded place, she is naturally inclined to fight her
way out of it. Similarly – and this why Australian audiences have not seen
Bjork since 1995 – too long out there in the world and she starts to lose
her sense of self.
“With The Sugarcubes, we would make an album for two or three months and
then we’d go on tour for 15 months, and a similar thing happened to me with
Debut and Post. When I started doing Homogenic in ’96 or ’97, I decided I
wanted to change the balance and spend maybe 15 months making an album and
four months touring it, because I felt I needed to progress more musically
instead of just being a rock animal in hotel rooms and sound checks. So the
last 12 years I’ve toured less, but I think it was worth it, because I’ve
gone into categories musically that I would never have seen if I had toured
as much as I did in the beginning.”
This is all very practical, of course, and the result of her pragmatism is a
career rich with massive revolutions. Still, as ever, there is something
uniquely Bjorkian about her logic. Even if her choices are easy to
understand, it is impossible to know how she does it.

Simone Ubaldi