Quotes

Elle m’a appelé un jour sans me dire qui elle était. Elle voulait des renseignements sur une histoire de programmation. J’ai tout de suite reconnu sa voix et comme nous cherchions une voix féminine pour l’un de nos morceaux...

Björk and I are both naturally introverts, but we kind of like doing extroverted things, and a mask allows you to do that in a really beautiful way.

( French rock duo )

This girl is genius. She created her own universe.

Björk is an artist in a different genre of music, but she is just terrific for the originality of her musicianship, which stands above all else, and because she expresses her own voice and develops her own sound.

"She really gives you free rein, and
she listens to everything and everyone. She just absorbs people, and
that’s why she comes out with so many different and brilliant ideas.

She inspired me for a
collection I did for Givenchy with the cover of Homogenic ; just the way
she was talking inspired me to think differently."

Je ne pense pas qu’on le voit à la caméra dans cette scène, mais on l’a tournée dans cette grange enflammée après un saccage. Et lors de sa scène, Björk avait derrière elle cette gigantesque pleine lune, juste derrière sa tête, et ça semblait parfait pour cette scène, son personnage et ce dont elle avait l’air. C’était absolument hypnotisant et tellement incroyable. (...) Elle était adorable. C’est un esprit unique et c’était une nuit incroyable. Je vais en Islande chaque année parce que mon meilleur ami est de là-bas, alors j’ai passé du temps avec elle l’été dernier et elle juste super cool. C’est la meilleure.

Apparently I’m supposed to be having a lesbian affair with Björk, but she’s married to Matthew Barney.

Alistair Beattie is from Me Company, which produced and directed the ’Hunter’ video.

Why a bear ?

We use the bear as a literal symbol of strength, ferocity, self-determination and the North, a pioneering roaming spirit. Hunter is a song about two different states, that of the hunter and the gatherer. The polar bear is the perfect symbol of the hunter state, it polarizes (ahem !) the difference between the two into something really extreme and magical. The choice of a techno-bear, though, has more to do with the idea of the beating heart of technology. Björk’s music often has a dialogue between organic forms and techno forms, and we share this interest. It’s not photoreal ; it’s able to collapse itself and rebuild itself at will. We had no desire to make it naturalistic.

Why is it so stark ?

The video is something like a koan or a haiku — it tries to ask the question in the most interesting manner possible. We wanted the effects to be done right in front of your eyes ; we didn’t want things to be hidden or faked or obscured. The magic and illusion are all the more powerful when it doesn’t feel like it’s being performed behind a veil of smoke and mirrors.

Is it easy to do this kind of morphing on computers ?

The technical skills required to do this kind of work are found only in a very few places, and we were lucky to land ourselves with a team of incredibly talented people at Digital Domain. What’s more interesting to us is that so much technology was used in such an invisible way. We never wanted the process to obscure the result. The nature of the special effects experience is that you don’t know how it was done ; the illusion is "sold" to you and you either buy it or you don’t. The heart and soul of the piece was Björk’s performance ; we shot 12 takes and then selected the best. The mantra throughout the production was that the performance must drive the computer graphics.

How much did it cost to make ?

This is not a question that we feel comfortable answering. Can we ask you a question ? What relevance does the bear have to good modern product design ?

I don’t know.

Transformative products are exciting, but robo-pets are even more exciting. We were interested in making the technology very visible, but also playing with translucency and transparency, soft boundaries. The irony of the digital age is that, as technology gets more invisible, people are more interested in being able to see it again, as in Apple Computer’s iMac, with its translucent blues and milky plastics that simultaneously tease and reveal.

What does Björk think of the video ?

She thinks it is "techno," one of her favorite words.

Evanescence singer Amy Lee says the only time she ever got starstruck was when she met her idol, Bjork, at a Japanese music festival. Bjork was the headliner the night before Evanescence played.

It was the first time for me to see her perform, it was raining, and she was amazing and I cried the whole time. And MTV in Japan is insane, so MTV has a video camera
on me the whole time watching Björk’s performance and they’re not taping her performance, they’re taping my face watching her perform. It was really funny. So I’m,
like, sobbing. You get to where you just ignore the camera, but it was weird.

Afterward, Lee met Björk in her dressing room and got an invitation to share some bubbly.

She’s like, ’Why don’t you stay and have some champagne ?’. And all the people in the room were looking at us. And I looked at the champagne and my eyes started getting stingy. And I was just like, ’Nah, actually, I have to get up really early. I better go.’ And I only talked to her for less than a minute because I knew I was about to cry. I could have killed myself after. But I knew I couldn’t stay.

Björk’s very, very big for me in a lot of ways. There are so many things that she does that when I hear it, I think, she’s gonna get [criticized] for this. Because nobody’s gonna understand it. And she doesn’t fit into this perfect, hot-girl, strong-woman category.

I want one Björk song because she’s such a huge influence for me. I always liked this song from Homogenic. It’s called Joga and the chorus goes "State of emergency. It’s where I want to be". It has these huge lush strings and it’s so beautifully musically. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but the music is insanely cool.

I have every single thing she’s put out. Her emotions are so complicated, just like all of ours. She doesn’t try and dumb them down and make them pretty.

I like so many of her songs and [Venus as a boy] is one of them.

I really love the album Nellee made with Björk - it’s one of my favourite albums ever.

Wow - that evening with Tavener - I wish my writing could describe well enough what an evening that was ! When we meet Björk we always have a laugh and reminisce about that ’top night’ (her words of course..). If you’re interested in his music (actually he’s about as close to Björk’s music as you can get in the classical world) could I recommend a piece called "the Protecting Veil" for ’cello and orchestra. It’s one of his ’big’ hits and sums up what you’re likely to get from him. I wish I could tell you what I know about the piece...

The live album from the Union Chapel. Well... on your web site
there’s a denial that this is happening. However there was an announcement in NME that it is happening. I can confirm that it will be available. Soon. Very soon, we hope.

Working with Björk on Vulnicura was really informative for a ton of reasons. One being that I admire how she uses her personal autobiography – she’s so fearless in making work that’s essentially a self-portrait, but she’s heightening it and making it transpersonal and archetypal. That’s what makes her such a powerhouse.

I’ve been doing work with Björk for the past four years. We did Vulnicura together, which was like, so heavy — and fun and exciting.

I’m a fan, you know ? I admit. I remember her videos on MTV. I remember hearing Post and Debut, but the first time I saw Bjork was in that “Hunter” video. Not that I could vocalize it at the time, but the combination of the optimism and futurist, kind of future-facing mentality of her music, you know ?

I saw Bjork. I’d never seen her live. I wouldn’t say a festival is the best way to judge a performance from an artist because it’s not always the most comfortable and sound is always escaping— no matter how great the sound guy is. But I had a great time listening, even with all those factors in mind.

Working with Björk was really inspiring. It was really amazing to see like a master. She’s like a master. Working in the studio was like "wow, look at that !". I couldnt keep up. It was like 300 % to my 100 %. It was like "wow oh god, look at her sing". She’s a madcap its unbelievable. She’s just so chilling. Maybe those tracks will pop up somewhere who knows we havent really decided yet. I dont know what her record..until she says its on her record I dont know if its really true.

She kind of rescued me at a very exhausted moment in my life. She brought me into her creative sanctuary and it was such a relief.

I admire Björk’s career a great deal because she isn’t beholden to others, she’s so free. Everyone listening wants to be free. Everyone wants to shout out and express themselves. We listen to a singer to bathe in the truth of her freedom.

(Apparat is a German electronic musician. His real name is Sacha Ring)

Im sitting in a bus through the south of mexico listening to vespertine and ’Harm of will’ gave me such a cold shower. I forgot how good this record is. Whenever only one person in the world experiences that listening to my record I can basically stop making music. It’ll be done then.

Sans les encouragements amicaux de Björk, je n’aurai jamais eu le courage nécessaire de chanter, pour la première fois, sur mon nouvel album. Si la plupart des paroles ont été improvisées, l’influence spirituelle de Björk a infiltré mon subconscient pour la chanson Anoche.

She’s given me advice on anything, (from) live show, arranging, how to breathe, how to sing, when to bow, when to fight, when to search, when to hold stillness" explique Arca. "its not just advice as a musician, it’s how she unlock things in ithers simply by seeing them on a deep level."

you know what changed my life ? being a part of this tour. laughter & tears & heart. Vulnicura Live is out now and features Vulnicura live features some of my remixes of older Björk songs I love a lot 2, hope u like em ! !!!!!! kisses all over ur forehead @bjork

When I wanted to talk to Björk, I’d call her at home, or just drop in, but all of a sudden everything has changed. You have to go through official channels now. But she’s had to detach herself because everyone wants a piece. Some people think she’s arrogant because of that, but at Easter an Icelandic writer did a long interview with her on state television which improved her perceived image - she was down to earth, open and honest.

She is a bit of a hero : when somebody makes it big abroad, which doesn’t happen very often in Iceland, it’s like ’Our Björk’. Her only defect is that she is too honest. She’s very stubborn too : stubborn, honest and talented.

( about "All Is Full of Love " )

This has such a cool vibe to it. It connects everyone.

(Works for Japis, Icelandic importer and distributor. Runs Bad Taste Ltd, The Sugarcubes’ multi-media company.)

I first met Björk when she was a member of Exodus. She was a very strong personality, singer and performer. She was greater than the music. No, I would never say that she was crazy, she was more a nice human being. She always had a voice that you would recognise. When you see footage from the early period, you really notice that skill of hers, as there are other vocalists to compare her to. She’s always been a part of a group of people that are very creative...

I admire her courage to dive within herself. She never makes any concessions ! She does whatever she wants. She has a thrilling voice and style ! She has incredible songs and lyrics. I listen to her very often.

People have told me what I’m doing inspires them, and that same thing has happened to me - I remember Sade’s ’Promise,’ and those great records by Bjork, they just hit me on my heart. ... If I can be involved like that, and inspire someone just a little bit, I’m a very very happy girl.

This song ( Isobel )
is a beautiful piece on Bjork’s wonderful album Post, it totally inspired me forever.

See björk is an extraordinary performer, she’s amazing. Never a puppet, she holds her own strings in her hands.

(The Sugarcubes’ bassist. Has retired from music to concentrate on writing poetry and prose, funded by the Icelandic government as well as partaking in Bad Taste Ltd business.)

One time in Lithuania she got hilariously drunk. She stormed into the hotel bar where all the rest of were sitting. We couldn’t believe our eyes. She started dancing around the bar, and I remember her taking down the big TV screen which was elevated from the floor, up near the ceiling, and putting it on the floor. The bartenders threw her out... I am very proud of how she operates in the music business, that she hasn’t lost that independent attitude that The Sugarcubes had. I also admire the way, when she is approached by boring old pop stars like David Bowie and Simon Le Bon to sing with her, she just says no. Although she is famous now, she doesn’t get fooled.

There is no point in expecting logical behaviour. You have to her accept her like she is, wild, unique.

We worked closely together, but I wouldn’t say we are friends, she’.... Well, we
live in different countries, and we speak different languages.

Who’s your biggest influence vocally ?

I’d have to say, it’s always been Björk. I took a job in 92 and U2 came to town for uh... I can’t remember the album, but I worked putting all the stage gear together and it was Public Enemy, Sugarcubes and U2. That was one of my first cassettes, "Life Is Good" by Sugarcubes.

She’s just always... she’s another person who sets the standard, you know, she just - what, she made a record where it’s just vocals-only, all the instrumentation is vocals. There you go, that sets - that’s who you have to be pretty much, you know. Yeah, she’s a pretty phenomenal influence - everything she’s ever done has been really really interesting, you know.

Björk had an almost singular interest in the more superficial aspects of being photographed : the colors used or clothing worn, etc. She explained that she tries to communicate a sense of her music in photographs (because people are more sophisticated visually than aurally) in order to prepare her audience, or potential audience, for the music itself. A source of frustration for me was that in filling out a portrait with fashion shoot trimmings (she wanted the fan blowing her hair all of the time, for example) it seemed to camouflage more than it conveyed about her as a person, or even as an artist.

The meaningful moments in the shoot were when she moved toward something that was sexual and vulnerable. At one point, she cupped her breasts, and at another, she pulled up her dress/jacket toward her crotch. Perhaps it was just normal human sexuality coming through her as a performer, but my instincts told me there’s something darker going on for her sexually.

When I first heard the track I wrote down the words ; ’sexual’, ’milk’, ’white porcelain’, ’surgery’, recalls Chris.

His immediate association with sex was vindicated when Björk arrived at his London office with a book of Chinese Kama Sutra prints as her only guiding reference.

I knew them and liked them, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep the explicit sexuality and still make it broadcastable... It’s a combination of several fetishes : industrial robotics, female anatomy, and flourescent light in that order. It was perfect, I got to play around with the two things I was into as a teenager : robots and porn.

My initial idea was to have a final stage where the two robots unfold like a flower as they mate. We couldn’t manage it, but perhaps it’s just as well, as the music doesn’t really allow for it. To be perfectly honest I didn’t have time to make the set look exactly as I wanted it, so I made it post heavy. I think I lost confidence that there was enough happening, and this put pressure on an already six-figure budget.

Every single shot in the video has about four layers. The first element is the shot of the set and the robot prop doing nothing, which we’d film for about 21 seconds. We’d then remove the prop Björk robot and put (the real) Björk in with her face painted white and wearing a blue suit. Using a mix of the (master shot and a live feed of Björk in frame) on the video monitor, we’d then try to match up as much as possible. It was a pretty crude and fairly terrifying method of shooting the video. For the Avid editing, I basically had a series of stills of a robot on a set and some crude shots of Björk wearing a blue suit with her face painted white. There was a definite feeling of insecurity all the way until the first couple of shots were finished in post, when I could finally tell whether it was working or not."

Then I started ... having ideas for ways of making the video better... So we were kind of improvising stuff in post. Up until that point I had absolutely no faith whatsoever in computer graphics, and now I’m more of a convert, really.

I threw several bands off TFI, it was really fun they couldn’t believe, Bjork was being a total arse one day and i just told her to go, four hours before transmision, she thought it was a joke until I told the security guards to escort her off the premises. The decision left an eleven minute hole in our running order, so I phoned a young director up called Guy Ritchie and asked him if he’d like to come on and talk about this new film I’d heard about called, "Lock, Stock and something," the rest as I’m sure you know is history, as now is Bjork, ha ha ! Karma, karma, karma.

Dear Bjork,
I’m sorry. We have to break up.

This may come as a shock to you. After all, we’ve been together for more than fifteen years. I distinctly remember the day we met, in January of 1988, when you sang ’Birthday’ to me from my mom’s car radio. It was the week after Christmas, and we were on our way to the mall for the sales, and it wasn’t my birthday. Whatever, it’s cool. I probably spent most of my money on an acrylic cardigan from the Squire Shop, but I saved eight dollars to buy your band’s new cassette (I got the green one ; I wished I was richer so I could buy all four flavors). I learned all the words, even the ones that made very little sense indeed. Because that’s what you do when you’re in love : You take the weird with the good, Einar inclusive.

It was all wine and roses for a few years ; the following Sugarcubes records were solid, if not as spectacular as the first. I was nervous when you struck out on your own in 1994, but it really turned out alright ; your first solo effort was effortless, and your second was as bold as it is pink. Homogenic was gorgeous, but it was then that I started to wonder if our love was meant to be. It was your first record of songs that sounded like what people figure a Bjork song should sound like. Does that make sense ? You’ve gotten so hard to communicate with. It didn’t used to be like this.

And then, Vespertine. A little whisper of a record, a light. Unassuming and floaty as feathers, right down to the artwork. It was clear in 2001 that you still loved me, you told me so.

So what’s up with Medulla ? I thought we had an understanding, that it was all working. That you’d continue to write songs, really good ones, and present them in a way that’s inventive enough to love, not inventive enough to hate. I mean, really. What *are* you doing ? It’s cool to follow your muse. I believe in that concept completely. She has been kind to you for many moons. But whatever she’s been telling you behind my back for these last three years — they’re all lies. You’ve been duped by a muse who is in a Bobby McFerrin phase. This is wrong.

It’s sad, I know. You must be wondering why this is so abrupt, why my generally fair and tolerant demeanor is gone, why I’ve assumed the voice of a Pitchfork reviewer. And you’re right, I don’t like this sort of vitriol. But I think it’s important for you to understand that it’s not me. It’s you. I don’t hate you, I never could. But clearly you need your space, and I’m happy to give it to you if this is the soundtrack.

I’ll call you sometime. It may be awhile, as it is when these things happen. Maybe on your birthday. Until then, take care of yourself and wear your seatbelt.

Chris.

I think she’s exciting. And I think what she brings to the table is very different, and I think she’s one that also pushes the envelope in getting people to think outside of their own safety boxes. I think what she does is very, very interesting.

(One Little Indian press officer.)

We were doing a photo shoot in Iceland, around Reykjavik. We went to The Blue Lagoon, a popular attraction, but we went first thing in the morning as it’s mainly Icelanders there, not tourists. There were these old people there, to take in the medicinal benefits, and Björk hadn’t got her bathing costume, so she was running around trying to get one, and these old ladies were clasping her hand, going, Oh Björk, well done, acting like her grandma, but Björk had never met them before. Whenever she goes back to Iceland now, that’s how people are toward her : they all feel they own a part of her, and that Björk is a part of Iceland.

C’est une des premières artistes à avoir débarqué avec un visuel très fort. Une maîtrise incroyable de ce qu’elle a envie de montrer, de donner, un truc anti-star système aussi. C’est la musique, l’art qui parle et qui prime !

I never heard that kind of singing, and she basically is giving artists the license to try things. It’s childish, yet also advanced musically. It makes you rethink what you can do vocally.

I love the imagery [in Isobel] of this girl secluded in a forest, like a fairytale and the rising chorus and all the vocal layers are so insistent.

I love this next artist - Bjork. I don’t just love her for the fact that she has constantly pushed the envelope and constantly done interesting work, but because this piece was connected to Dancing In The Dark for me, because Dancing In The Dark was about a woman who her daydreams kinda got her through when she looked at everything as a musical.

And this next song is one of the songs that shows her ability to be in a musical number, and it’s so sick and twisted in a way - I love her. I love her spirit. And this is what this video celebrate - her spirit. Her free spirit.

Um, what is it, is it "Quiet" ?
"When it’s so Quiet" ?
("It’s Oh So Quiet")
That’s it. It’s and old song, and it’s called "It’s Oh So Quiet". I have many names for it, I know, but that’s the official one - that’s the real title. "It’s Oh So Quiet" by Bjork.

( the making of "Volta" )

Björk didn’t have a manifesto for this record .She only wanted it to be a bit more extroverted than some of her previous records. And she wanted it raw and pretty rude, which are the words she was using. Unlike having a very definitive description of how [the record] was going to sound like she did with Homogenic or Vespertine, it was more of an exploration of the whole process. She wanted to have an adventure, like jumping off a cliff, just going somewhere and working with someone without preconceived ideas — what happens when you put Björk in a room with Toumani Diabaté or Konono N1 and hit go, basically.

***

On Vespertine, we went as superhigh-tech as we possibly could. Every single sound was chopped up on a grid, and I would be drawing in little clicks and pops by hand. It was really meticulous, but with this record, we agreed that we find that approach a bit tired. Now we want stuff to be very raw, basically. It wasn’t so much like Björk would sit down with Pro Tools and loop something up for 4 bars on 16th notes ; she would choose several bits or phrases and direct where she wanted them. She will sit down at the rig and hack away, but when there is an intricate bit of editing, she makes good use of her time in making decisions, like, ‘How do we shorten that syllable ?’

***

"Vertebrae" was actually created out of a loop manipulating the different channels of the 5.1 mix, as opposed to having them play out in a conventional timeline. The beats were originally programmed with 808 kicks and static-y noises. I used NI Kontakt for the snare-drum rolls and really careful programming. I layered up a whole bunch of different snare samples and detuned them and used some randomization to spread them out. And then I added an orchestral kick-drum sample and orchestral percussion to replace the electronic stuff. The swooshing sounds are some white noise that I automated with EQs in Pro Tools. Originally, I took that sample from a Moog software synth, used a white-noise generator, recorded a bunch of noise and automated some high and lowpass filters and Pro Tools EQ3, and I used the Echo Farm plug-in as well.

***

Because we didn’t work in one central studio, we had a full-on HD rig in a flight case that we carried around with us in a soundproofed Isobox case. That was critical because we usually set up in a hotel room or a cabin, and we didn’t have a separate control room. We used all the EQs and plug-ins in HD and the different Pro Tools rigs in the different studios. I was minimalist with the plug-ins. I used the stock Digi stuff. If you actually A/B the really expensive, esoteric third-party stuff against the Digi stuff, it holds up really well and, in some cases, a lot better. I used the stock Digi EQ2 and EQ3. And I am a huge fan of Lo-Fi, one of the best Pro Tools plug-ins because it is so versatile, and depending on where you put it in the chain, you can get a lot of different effects out of it. On Volta, a lot of the vocal effects are a combination of those EQs and compression, before and after Lo-Fi. If you squash something really hard, brighten it up, then hit Lo-Fi gently with a little bit of distortion and 1 on saturation, then re-EQ it afterwards, you will get a totally different kind of roughness than if you put Lo-Fi in front of the chain then squash it. It’s a huge thumbs-up for stock Digi plug-ins !

Everything she does is incredibly compelling and beautiful and weird, and everything she touches is amazing.

That was taken at the Tibetan Freedom Concert. I’m a huge fan of her music and of her personally. I remember her publicist or her manager coming over to me and saying, "OK, we’re going to bring Bjork by, and she really doesn’t have a lot of time to do this, but we wanted to do this." She’s just so intense ; she’s just so present that she just looked into the camera — talk about just a simple photograph that works. Her presence is so strong, you can just stare into her eyes for a long time and not get bored, even though the picture is so simple. I think I shot half a roll of film and a couple of Polaroids, and she walked away. That’s what I remember about that, it was just a couple of frames, and when I got my film back I just thought, "That’s beautiful, she’s beautiful."

(American Rock Band)

Genius ! Bjork is in a category all to herself. This song (Joga) has her trademark blend of lush strings and eletronics. Bjork has a voice like nobody else. Like a siren. Her vocal range is sick ! She’s very theatrical,very animated... and she is a character for sure !

Different is good , and she does "different" better then anyone else.

These were not the type of people who say : "Leave your kids at home when you tour.’"

(Member of Flux Of Pink Indians (now Flux), associates of anarcho-punk collective Crass. Through Crass met Einar of Purkurr Pillnikk who later joined Kukl alongside Bjork. They recorded for Crass’ label, when half of Kukl became The Sugarcubes, Birkett became involved with them through his label, One Little Indian. He is now her manager.)

She’ll only work with people she respects... I was approached by four of the biggest selling artists in the world to sing with her at the Brits but she desperately wanted to sing with Polly Harvey. She’s done business deals on moral accounts, and paid people she didn’t have to, and credited people who didn’t need to be. She’s possibly the worst business person I’ve ever worked with.

We were going to do a major deal for The Sugarcubes with Warners. Just before the signing we were told there’d be an element of compromise and that if we went with the singles Warners wanted, they work harder. But the band said they’d be happier selling a hundred records they wanted to rather than one million that Warners did. I was devastated but they weren’t. Einar bought me a bottle of brandy and Bjork bought me a ceramic model where a snake pops out of a pot. And I was sitting in the park with them, thinking, Fuck, we just walked out on half a million quid and they don’t give a shit. It’s been a bit like that ever since...

I had this first international artist to remix in the early 90’s which was from the lead singer of a band and started to have her first solo album, her name was Bjork. I really loved the Sugar Cubes of which she was the singer and I did this mix and handed it over to a couple of guest dj’s that went through Paris and that I had interviewed on my show namely like Frankie Knuckles and David Morales.6 months later I get a call from a Japanese guy living in New York saying ‘err.. can you get me a copy of that mix that you did’. I said how did you know about this ? ‘Well because David and Frankie are hammering it and are playing it about three times a night - every time that they play’.

When Dom met Björk he knew nothing about The Sugarcubes.

I just thought, who’s this wild and wonderful lcelandic girl. She’s like she is. She doesn’t put on a show for anybody. We went out and partied and got into the tunes everyone else was into. She’s always been into dance music, her taste in music is very, very wide, she’s into a lot of different styles.

– 

She has always wanted to do her own album. Be in control and make her own music. I kind of realised that pretty quickly. I knew it was going to be a great album.

interviewer : For your video selection, you’ve chosen björk. I found that a bit wierd. explain me why you’ve chosen her ?

dorotheé : Well, I first loved the movie Dancer In The Dark. I found it very moving and loved the musical parts, especially when she sings my favorite
things before the last scene. I adored it.

interviewer : Is it because as her she is an actress and singer that you like her ?

dorotheé : Not only because of that. She gives herself intirely when she sings. She
is complete on stage. I love her attitude.

Dear Friends at Bjork.com...

I was so happy today to read a quote of Bjork in Index Magazine concerning the
importance of pictures and visual stimuli when linked to music. She said
something to the effect of "most people’s eyes are much more developed than
their ears..."

This couldn’t be any further from the truth. I am a 29 year old professor of
piano at a music school in northern New York, and teach undergraduates in both
private and group piano environments. I am aware that most of us are extremely
sensitive to the visual happenings around us, and try to teach my students the
process of transferring what they see on the page (in black and white) into a
gesture on the instrument. This is very difficult however, because music in
both touch and sound is not as tangible to the human senses as it is when found
in print.

I am very happy that Bjork finds it necessary to appeal to the visual
capabilities of her fans in order to further express the emotion in her music.
Hopefully this process will encourage her fans (and my piano students) to become
more aware of their aural surroundings and ultimately realize the possibilities
of emotional depth through sound.

I attended her concert in New York City last October and became well aware of
her musical capabilities. I was simply mesmerized by her ability to display a
wealth of human feeling with the timbre and volume of her voice alone, not
including the wonderful choir, orchestra and electronica. I truly believe that
musicians of all disciplines can learn much from Bjork’s songs and vocal
techniques, and look forward to many more albums and concerts...

Sincerely,
Dr. James Schmidt
Crane School of Music
State University of New York at Potsdam
Potsdam, NY <

With Björk, emotion is absolutely key. She’ll sacrifice a full orchestra if she thinks it’s clogging the mix.

My impression of Björk is just Björk. I refuse to talk about my friends because a friendship is not for analysing. You’ll never get me to say I hate her because I regard her as one of my good friends. But I am glad that people have found something, this thing being Björk, after all these years, even though it has been staring them in the eye all this time. It’s incredibly funny that the music industry has suddenly gone, Wow, what a voice.

I think I must be devoid of emotions, or I am too familiar with all her capabilities, because I don’t piss in my pants when I hear her sing. I can only talk about her disability, which is to drive a car. In three words : well, well, well.

You all have toured with Coldplay, Switchfoot, Snow Patrol and New Found Glory among others. Who else would you all like to tour with ?

Weston : Mew, Bjork, Cashmere.

Sherri, Chauntelle : Cashmere.

Bjork could be fun

Sherri : Yeah, but she probably only picks really weird, unique artists.

Stacy, you recently were able to interview Stevie Nicks for Foam. What was that experience like ?

Stacy : It was amazing. She was so nice to me. She was like — just gave me a lot of insight, I think, and she was very funny — just really cool.

Are there any other artists that you all would like to interview ?

Garron DuPree : Paul McCartney.

Sherri : Bjork ! My husband got to interview Bjork on the phone a few years ago. I’m a little jealous.

I listened to Björk for the first time and I was like, "Nope ! I’m going to be the weirdest person I can possibly be", I’m going to be a rock star.

How was it working with Bjork ?

Bjork is very tapped in. She assumed a position of support and generosity with us rather than a position of creative oversight. Her energy and focus were so strong that it pushed us to take this project on with a tremendous amount of mythological weight and tunnel vision enthusiasm.

What’s the basic concept of the video ?

Bjork is an archetypal nomad, shepherding giant yaks through the Mountains. She does hydromancy to decide whether to take them down a river or not. A second self, the Painbody Backpack, sprouts from her like a growth and then engages her in an action play which displays their relationship. The force which compelled Bjork to go down river begins to manifest itself in Bjork’s head and in the physical world. This character, the Rivergod, is a transcendental attractor which pulls her into the future.

How long did the video take to create ? What was the hardest aspect ?

The video took nine months from concept art to us being pulled - kicking and screaming - from our computers. Sean had to become a 3D expert and build a 3D camera system and playback box and pioneer lots of DIY processes. For me the hardest aspect was trying to achieve an immersive, complete, and very specific aesthetic - because the only thing in the video that isn’t hand crafted is bjork’s face, hands, and feet. I used my own hands everyday but also worked with over 50 key artists to achieve the forms and textures of this world. We tried to lodge ideas into the forms and use the patterns and textures of these forms to transmit meaning to the viewer.

What made you want to work with 3D in the age of YouTube ?

Well, firstly let me get out the news that 3D doesn’t work on YouTube because of heavy color compression, which is what anaglyph 3D glasses rely on for decoding the 3D properly. A lot of people watch 3D on YouTube without knowing that they are actually looking at something that is way screwed up, or ’ghosted’ in stereoscopic jargon. Secondly, why 3D ? Because we see the ultimate transcendental function of art as "expanding the realms of direct experience." 3D allows a film to be more like direct experience and less detached and seperate from how we organically percieve. Right now technology is still trying to create better home viewing solutions (anaglyph sucks), but theatrically its already there.

The work on Homogenic is actually simple. A lot of her rhythm loops are very contemporary, so before I attempted to write things on top of them I decided to write underneath, on her vocals, rather than to fight or add to the rhythm. Writing over the beat means writing a new line that’s not in the song, something that will stick out-a high violin part, for instance. But when you write a melody that’s already there, or chords in the low or mid range as pads, that’s writing under.

In some of the songs I followed her secondary vocal lines ; there was very little harmony and very few chords. I was doing that on ’Isobel’ too, where I wrote a natural C in a line that was in B minor. Much later on I learned that Björk is the type of singer who will sing the A sharp in A minor, but I wasn’t yet aware that she did that when I did that first song. It’s just something I felt about her.

Deodato’s old-fashioned pencil-on-paper approach blends nicely with the sample-churning techniques his younger colleagues embrace. Rather than diminish his contribution, both he and Björk feel that his traditional skills make him all the more valuable - and exotic - a commodity.

That’s where I shine, because all most people can do these days is program their drum machines and sequencers. They will take samples from television, which they have already heard from other movies ; that’s just rewriting, not writing. Sure I can sample but nothing ever beats the real thing.

He looks up to the cloudless sky, stretching his arms wide.

I’m here, Sitting in the sun, with beautiful mountains and this incredible view, in the company of Björk and all these musicians. I can’t sample that.

Then he looks our way and winks. But I can compose it.

"I was in Japan and she called me from a studio in Bahamas", recalls Eumir. They met couple of days later in London and the results can be heard in tracks Hyperballad, You’ve Been Flirting Again and Isobel.

"She has developed a style and a music that I’ve never heard anything like in my life. When I heard her material, I freaked out, and I said, ’What are you doing ? This is crazy, this is so difficult, to propose this kind of style to the people.’ But she does, and she’s successful at it. There’s the liberty she takes with melodies and with harmony that sometimes apparently leaves clashes that are not really clashes, they’re concepts. It’s an acoustic principle, but she instinctively goes into that vein, and she blends all these things with a beautiful voice."

MY SPINE
’My Spine’ is from a group of pieces Bjork and myself wrote and experimented with during our initial meeting.I say ’experiment’ because that is exactly what we did
in my recording studio. Bjork was seduced by huge collection of percussion instruments and what did we decide to use ? Homemade tuned car exhaust pipes ! The
effect when played with four hand glockenspiel mallets portrays a raw, busy, gamelan-like sound which is in huge contrast to the sustain of Bjork’s voice. The title was derived simply from us liking the sound and feel of the words ’My Spine’.

OXYGEN
It is very difficult to explain the feeling when you meet someone for the first time and somehow magic happens. ’Oxygen’ was the first experiment Bjork and I made back in 1995. Everything we did we recorded ; this piece, with all the pops and rattles and other unrefined noises, shows that this was a totally spontaneous effort - without ’makeup’ or doctoring of any kind. This is how I like to make music. This piece remained untitled until appearing on this album. Why ’Oxygen’ ? I haven’t the foggiest.

Engineer and Producer Greg Malcangi adds :

Just a few hours after meeting for the first time, Evelyn and Bjork wanted to quickly lay down an idea while it was still fresh in their minds. A session tape was made within twenty minutes. At a later date, Bjork returned to Heritage studio to record a release version, but the magic of that practice take could never quite be recreated. Despite a few creaks and rattles from the marimba and the occasional ’pop’ from Bjork’s mic, both Evelyn and Bjork were in full agreement that the session tape should be used as the release version. It remains a completely unedited single take that is deeply moving.

At the beginning, we never thought that vocals could sound that great on our music, but then we had the chance to do the Björk remix and her vocals sounded fantastic with our music.

I’m a huge fan of Amy Winehouse and Bjork, she confesses about two of the people she hopes to work with for [her comeback].

( About the video for ’Isobel’ )

Isobel was filmed for two days in a forest near Llangollen, North Wales, plus one "long" day in Black Island Studios in London on May 31, 1995. The crew used a Mitchell S35 camera with a varispeed, "to be able to rewind the camera and do superimpositions/masks, as Melies used to do in the 1900’s." Film stock : Kodak 5231 (b&w)

Was it tough getting the projections to appear inside the water-organ ?

It was a complicated mirror-trick. The screen for the rear projections is huge and needs much distance, so we had to shoot in one of the biggest studios of London.

Who built the model planes & sets ?

An english model maker crew "Model Solutions" built the harmonium. [They] had just done some models for a Pink Floyd CD cover. The Art Dept (Joseph Bennett crew) brought the model planes, light bulb field, insects...

What was your role during production ?

Trying to get it done !

What do you remember about the shoot ?

rainy rainy rainy, muddy, slippery rocks by the river...
very tough. I think no one would understand what was all this about. especially for me who was walking with a crank (after a badly-broken leg) and michel was not quite sure of everything...

but he was not the only one : björk didn’t like her outfit after the first day of shoot, that’s why she finally wears two different oufits in the finished vid. Björk is such a nice person : as she could see everyone was working hard for her video, she would come on the shoot and stay even when she had nothing to shoot, just playing music (boards of canada) on her ghetto-blaster for the crew... so nice, so anti-star, so simple. And she would really involve in the creation process, watching, being interested in every shot we did and how we would make it.

The accomodations for Björk and Michel were planned in a very beautiful old hotel in Wales, but Björk came with her camping tent, put it in the garden of the hotel and preferred to sleep in it !

when the video turned out to be so good and beautiful, we had a projection of the finished video for the crew in a cinema in London. So it means that a 35mm positive copy was printed, unlike 99.9% of actual music videos.

( About the video for ’Bachelorette’ )

Filmed in 1997, a few weeks before Deadweight. There were 2 days of Bolex plus 3 days in a Los Angeles cinema studio on 35mm, plus 2 days in a French animation studio on a Debrie 35. They also shot in an L.A. train station, a park, and a few restaurants in downtown. The Chicago views are stock footage.

Compared to Jòga, this looks like it was a massive production, where both Björk, Michel and the entire crew worked extremely hard. Who worked the hardest ? .

ME of course ! and the whole crew as well. You’re right it was like a mini movie. a kind of mini nightmare, with all possible film techniques, and all the kinds of shooting (exterior shots with extras in black and white in the city / exterior colour, handheld camera in the forest (somewhere in a LA park) ; studio / crane shots with extras / many mini-sets / animation shots / post production on stock footage / 2nd unit shots...

the 1st AD impressed me. I don’t remember his name, he was an american guy, very good at his job. I thought "ok. I could never do that - I’ll stop being an AD soon" oh and the art department crew as well.

( About the video for ’Joga’ )

Jòga was filmed from 1-4 August 1997 in Iceland using a 6x6 camera, then scanned in high-resolution for post production. (Film stock : 400 rolls of Ektachrome 100 asa.) Michel shot Björk at the top of the hill with a Bolex ,but wasn’t happy with the outcome. "The film roll of the "bolex shots" wasn’t even transferred to video. As it was MY bolex, I kept the film roll - and transferred it later." Post production lasted about a month at BUF Compagnie.

Björk travelled with us (we were a very small crew in a minibus) and talked about places where she wanted to shoot.

How was the shoot ? Did anything go wrong ?

It was like holidays really, the days were like this : we were driving for an hour or two in a van, stopping at some point Björk knew or Michel saw, writing down where it was on a map to tell the helicopter pilot where it was and then keep scouting. Then the next day, they would sit in the chopper and fly off. They were taking pictures from up there, and that was it. They even tried from a small plane, but I think it was easier from the copter. we had extra fuel for the helicopter in our van.

basically it was pure holiday. The only hard thing was the weather. I remember that we were waiting for some clear weather to take-off in August and rain and grey weather... we were freezing cold. Summer in Iceland...

I remember clearly the scene on the black sand beach : Björk was doing her make up in the minivan, and then she would lie on the beach, and pretend to sleep. We were walking around her, taking pictures of her, and then take the copter to fly above her and shoot her from up there. But the cold waves were reaching her some time to time. And she was supposed to not move at all for about half an hour. and she didn’t. Truly this girl is an alien ! We were a small crew : Michel + photographer + his assistant + french producer + icelandic line producer, who was also driving us + myself. Plus Björk of course.

( About the video for ’Hyperballad’ )

Nemetä said in an e-mail interview in 2006 that Hyperballad was filmed in a studio in London on 35mm. "only one box of film of course. it’s one of the cheapest films Michel has done." .

"a long long shoot (approx 22 hours) on a day in December. I remember pushing the door to watch outside and seeing that it was night and that it had snowed during the shoot..."

Was this a hellish video to make ?

YES ! especially for the D.O.P : Tim Maurice Jones. For him it was a nightmare in measuring the lights on TVs, small light bulbs etc... PLUS doing all that in film superimposition : in total there was 8 layers superimposed.

AND for the operators. Each camera move = 1 instruction, as it was a one sequence shot [that] was 4 minutes long.... but as it was in animation, with very small light bulbs, it had to be done with long exposures... so each sequence shot was 6 times longer ... 24 minutes. They spent hours filling their computer with instructions. their computer had never taken so much different instructions for a camera move.

I think no one really realizes how this video is technically a masterpiece !!!

Who made all of the different elements ?

all the computer animations were done by a graphist @ BUF I think, and they were all done before the shoot. (and then played on the TVs in front of the camera) Now I wonder.. : maybe it was even Olivier "Twist" Gondry who was working there at that time. ? don’t remember.

for all the art department & props , it was all done by Michel + pierre pell + eric valin + me !

What did you do during production ?

run everywhere, waking up the DOP (or Art Dept, or Björk) when they would fall asleep ! moving Tv’s and stuff, really everyone was doing a bit everything as the crew was very small. watching the computerized Field Recorder moving and by itself in the low-lit studio with big motor noises in the middle of the night above a sleepy Börk was a surrealistic experience. not at all like an usual shoot !

(R&B singer/songwriter married to Paul Fox. Wrote ’Don’t Look Any Further’, covered by The Kane Gang and M-People. Helped Björk with translations of lyrics.)

I love her lyrical approach. I don’t know exactly how she goes about it, but it’s very raw, emotional and honest, and says exactly what’s going on in her head. She did most of the work, she knew what she wanted to say, I made it flow better in English. It’s like a painting, how she feels about a certain situation and her perspective on it, which, if you know Björk, is only how she could see it, which is what makes it unique. She turns everything into a positive, for herself, and to grow from. I really like her, in case you couldn’t tell. She’s brilliant, life-loving and woman-child."

Things like that always make me laugh. I was very honoured.

She’s a child of nature but not naïve, even if she pretends to be, said Frida Björk Ingvarsdottir, a newspaper columnist, who is not related.

She’s rebellious. She can be obnoxious. But that’s a common trait in Icelandics. You should see us drunk. She’s a strong woman, and I find that very positive.

She’s not globalized, like Britney Spears or the Spice Girls, only interested in what sells. She’s stubborn, and she stays who she is.

We are from the same family. Our grandfathers are brothers. Our collaboration started in a kind of thinking out loud, over coffee. She would understand everything in a very visual way. She also liked how I understood what she was doing, so our collaboration to begin with was a mental kind of thing. Then we decided three years ago that we should work a little more together.

First we collaborated on Björk’s Family Tree and the Greatest Hits album with M/M. In November last year we shot a video together where we tried to make the perfect collaboration. We shot the video in a horse farm in Iceland. Now we’re editing the raw material. We shot a music video for one of her songs on the new album, Medulla and another for the tetralogia I’m working on for the Venice Biennale. It’s an experiment.

(Session saxophonist, played on ’Tidal Wave’, from The Sugarcubes’ ’Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week’ and ’Anchor Song’ from ’Debut’.)

She’s very much how she comes across onstage, a livewire character with lots of spontaneous ideas. On ’Tidal Wave’ she collaborated with this Icelandic avant garde arranger on the brass arrangement which we thought was in the wrong key because it sounded so odd, but when we played it back with the track, it sounded great. The band were an interesting bunch to work with — maybe it’s the months of darkness but they have an other-worldly feel to them. Björk’s quite elf like in a way.

She’s an amazing woman, she’s totally unique, she does what she believes in, she makes music from her heart and she does it well. We could cover the whole spectrum of the world with the music we make. Which is quite mad.

(Founder member of 808 State. Bjork recorded two tracks on their ’Ex:El’ LP, ’Ooops’ and ’Q-Mart’. Is currently collaborating with Bjork on a new EP, due out in late autumn.)

She rang up out of the blue. She didn’t say who she was : ’a composer from Iceland’ is the way she put it, although I had an idea. She was listening to our ’90’ album and was looking for help on the drum programming side. I phoned that night to see if she’d do something for our album. She postponed her flight to Iceland, came up to Manchester the next day, and did two tracks in as many days. It was definitely a case of musical empathy.

Björk in two words ? Strength and timebomb, especially now she’s in the mainstream. Her background has an anarchic streak, and it hasn’t died out yet. It is in a position to kick off, which is one of the most interesting things in pop. I think she’s completely misunderstood : people think she’s just being clever but there is a genuine integrity about her music. Maybe it was a bit glossed over on the album, but look at what happens next. She won’t go for the easy option.

Most acts were putting out seven-inches with throwaway lyrics like, ’Ooh, baby, baby’. But Björk took that culture and made an album with poetic lyrics. It blew everyone away. She never tried to fit in with any electronic movement, she just took the ideas and got personal with it.

(Drummer on Björk’s Icelandic jazz/swing LP ’Gling Glo’, on Bad Taste in 1990. After playing for nearly 50 years, is nicknamed ’Papa Jazz’. Plays in the Bjorn Thoroddsen Trio.)

We met on a radio programme, translated as Good Friends Meeting. I’ve listened to her since she was very young, I was born in 1929, and I immediately thought, This is different. She was unique. People disliked her because she was such a ... nature child. They said she was pretending but there is no pollution there, just pure Björk. I hope she is still the same.

She wanted to sing these old Icelandic tunes that older singers had made famous. The pianist, bassist and I want wild, we did the whole thing live, no double takes. The song she sings with just the piano in just one take. She is as good as the old singers, but very different. She changed the musical style, with more improvisation. She made it lighter. I’m very fond of her records in England, they’re so different. Even at my age, you can tell what she does and how she sings is from the heart, and that’s what counts.

(Aka Godkrist, guitarist, collaborator of Psychic TV, Current 93, founder of Peyr and founder member of Kukl. Co-wrote an LP with Björk before the ’Cubes : from which ’Stigdu Mig’ appears on the B-side of ’Venus As A Boy’ and ’Sidasta Eg’ on the B-side of ’Big Time Sensuality’.)

I remember in the middle of the ’80s, an outdoor festival with a lot of drunk people calling out for her to play a new pop song, or a greatest hit, or a dance song. She was very proud just to play her own music, so to make her statement she jumped offstage, went to the centre of the dancefloor, and went to the toilet on the spot. It demonstrates that she speaks out very frankly.

I’d love to work with Björk, just because ’Vespertine’ blew my mind. Just one of the most innovative things I’ve ever heard.

Elle voulait reprendre de vieux standards. Nous nous sommes rencontrés au cours d’une émission de radio. Nous avons tout enregistré live. C’est vraiment une chanteuse extraordinaire, très douée pour l’improvisation. sa façon de chanter vient du fond de son cœur. Et c’est tout ce qui compte.

She has such a creative look. Her vocal style is so unique, she’s like a little alien. You know, a little tootsie-roll alien girl.

When I first heard her album I was so surprised, says her mother whom I meet fleetingly in Reykjavik. Because for anyone who knows Björk, it is so very much her. It is a bit to do with being here, to do with the light and dark, the dramatic contrasts. It is very honest and I love to listen to it.

The thought of her work ever turning into anything like an actual pop career hadn’t even crossed her mind until catching the attention of a friend of a rather influential friend.

“I think because of the strength of the videos combined with the music, a mutual friend showed them to Leila [Arab] who then showed them to Björk. Björk then picked me as her favourite artist of 2005 in Q magazine, which was really nice of her. Her label boss then asked her, ‘What’s this HK119, is it one of your things ?’, and she just said ‘no, it’s this Scandinavian bird !’. And then I just got an email from him saying he wanted to help me put my stuff out. No one else would have touched me with a pole, and then I get an invite like that !“

Au sujet du sexisme dans l’industrie musicale.
"I really appreciate the bjork comments. We are burdened by archetypes developed by an industry that wasn’t built for us."

She has an amazing ability to express herself with her voice, while
also using a distinctive melody. When someone can express
themselves with that dexterity, which sounds funny because it’s how you
talk about hands... but her music moves me and Bono does the same
thing with his voice. Robbie (Robertson) can do that
to me. Few singers can do it, though.

What’s different about Björk’s approach is that her ideas in the early nineties were touching on things that most musicians hadn’t touched on before. She made references to things that weren’t related to fashion or music — like nature and poetry and technology — that she kind of introduced through fashion and music.

La femme professionnelle et la femme privée ne font qu’un. Elle manifeste en toute chose un engagement et une confiance à toute épreuve. Les idées, chez elle, lors de la préparation d’un clip, sont généralement visuelles mais sans qu’il n’y ait jamais une référence directe à l’objet. Björk pourrait tout aussi bien, par exemple, évoquer la mue d’une araignée comme référence au rugissement du lion.

Une fois, par - 10 degrés en Islande, alors que nous faisions des repérages, elle sautait de la voiture en pantoufles et robe longue, et nous encourageait à nous élancer à ses côtés sur des cascades gelées et des sols glissants. Elle est originale et curieuse de tout. Son travail ne tend qu’à une chose : aborder des terres créatrices à chaque fois nouvelles. C’est la personne la plus talentueuse que nous ayons jamais rencontrée.

The work I did for Bjork clearly were « adaptations » : she had created full, complete arrangements written with music box in mind. Her music was inventive and beautiful as it lay, and it was a shame that it wouldn’t fit on a music box disc as it was. (Frosti was longer than the 1 minute which could fit on a disc.) So, I knew my task was to get it to fit without wrecking it.

(Icelandic cultural attache in London.)

When she was in The Sugarcubes and had a baby, the band were promoting a concert and making their first appearance at it. Björk was walking around with her baby in a pram, handing out posters. I remember meeting her in a shop in the queue, and when it was her turn she said, I want to change this bottle of shampoo. The man asked her what kind of shampoo she wanted and she said, A bottle of milk for my baby. It shows how tough it was being a progressive musician in Iceland. But she was daring to be different.

Can someone tell Bjork to give us more than ONE pop song on her new
album. . . bless her. Saw her at Radio City a couple weeks ago and it
was really good. . .throw us a bone though. Earth Intruders IS an
amazing song however. We tried covering it for the B-side of Kiss
You Off. We rehearsed and rehearsed and recorded it at a sound check
in Madrid. We took it back in the studio and tried to make
tails of it, and decided that it just didn’t sound good at all and we
weren’t going to subject you lovely people to our terrible version.
So instead we dug up a weird demo called Bad Shit from early Ta-dah
sessions. It’s a silly, simple tune.

How does this project compare to your previous work for Björk ?
I’ve been working with Björk for eight and a half years now and it’s safe to say no two days have ever been the same. Each project is so different from the one before. On Biophilia we went deep into scientific research for two years, app building and education. On Vulnicura we had the whole journey into virtual reality. Utopia is pushing off into a new trajectory.

Collaborating with her is “like an invitation into a very specific universe that she is creating to surround her music, where she encourages you to grow and flourish inside of that world and brings the best out of you, teasing out the places where both your worlds overlap while still staying true to her vision,” he says.

How did your partnership with Björk come to be ?
I was introduced to Björk over 6 years ago through a mutual friend in London when she was just starting to conceive Biophilia and looking for an assistant to come on board. It was such an adventure. We swapped a few YouTube videos by email and then I went to meet her in New York. I went back to London, and then two weeks later, I dropped everything and moved out to New York to work with her full-time, which I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to talk about it really, as it has always existed in such a magical and fertile place and I would never want to burst that bubble by trying to define it too much. But meeting and working with her has definitely been the best thing that ever happened to me, in so many ways.

J’ai rencontré Björk pour la première fois en 2009. C’est un ami commun à Londres qui nous a présentés, quand elle cherchait un assistant pendant les premières phases de recherche de son projet Biophilia Educational Project. Je suis à ses côtés depuis tout ce temps.

Nous nous lançons toujours ensemble dans ces aventures – qu’il s’agisse d’une tournée, d’un photoshoot, d’un nouvel album, ou simplement de la découverte d’un nouvel auteur. J’adore être avec elle dans cette énergie obsessive d’exploration, où il y a toujours une nouveauté fascinante à partager. Elle a la capacité de créer autour de son travail un espace vraiment généreux et ouvert. Elle a aussi un esprit pratique et rigoureux. La caricature complètement à l’ouest qu’on fait d’elle me paraît toujours étrange, car dans n’importe quel groupe, c’est généralement elle la plus solide et la plus pragmatique.

I feel so blessed. I have so many people I look up too : Bjork, Outkast, Fiona Apple, Janet Jackson, Madonna... I want to take the things they’ve taught me to the stars...

She has such a unique voice and a unique point of view as an artist, and I really appreciate that.

Bjork is an amazing artist. She has one of the most purest voices ever.

It’s [Vespertine] very simply a perfect album from start to finish, and one that somehow makes me envious. I mean, how can one be that good.

(French photographer, responsible for the cover of ’Debut’ and the ’Violently Happy’ video.)

The last experience we had together was in LA. We were supposed to do the video for ’Violently Happy’ the morning of the earthquake, so we postponed it until the next day. She said she was so happy to have experienced the earthquake, and on top of that she didn’t have her son with her so she was freer to experience it without fear... For me she is an iceberg, we only see a little tip of it.

« La première impression que j’ai eue d’elle ­et qui dure ­, c’est qu’elle est un mélange de maturité et d’enfantin. D’entrée, quand elle est venue à Paris faire les photos de Debut, elle avait envie de mettre des vêtements de Marghiella. C’est un petit détail, mais un détail photographique de stylisme, qui montre qu’elle est curieuse, qu’elle a le sens des choses créatives du moment. Il y avait autour d’elle cette espèce d’étrangeté intense et qui, par moments, frise la schizophrénie.

Ça a été important pour moi de rencontrer une sensibilité que je ne connaissais pas. Elle est inclassable, extrêmement brillante. À travers sa musique, son physique et son comportement, on ne peut pas dire qu’elle découle de quelqu’un, on ne lui connaît pas d’ascendance, on a du mal à dire d’où elle vient. Ça a été assez étonnant de voir naître quelque chose qui n’avait aucune texture rétro. Notre relation de travail n’a pas été la même qu’avec les autres artistes : chacun a sa manière d’être. Et elle, il est évident qu’elle est très libre.

Ce qui est étonnant avec Björk, c’est qu’elle arrive toujours comme un personnage, elle débarque toujours comme dans un conte. Elle arrive avec sa petite valise à roulettes, avec des choses entassées dedans, un peu chiffonnées, et c’est toujours merveilleux : c’est une boîte à malice.

Lorsque j’étais à Los Angeles pour faire le clip de Violently Happy, il y a eu le fameux tremblement de terre de 94, très violent, le matin où on devait faire le clip. Évidemment, personne n’est allé au studio puisque les routes étaient cassées, il n’y avait plus d’électricité. La seule personne qui est allée au studio avec sa petite roulotte, c’était elle. Elle a trouvé ça « great » ! Quel personnage ! Elle aurait pu être dans Shrek.

Les relations de travail avec elle sont à la fois très simples et tordues. On a l’impression d’avoir affaire à quelqu’un qui vient d’une autre planète. Même si on communique par la langue anglaise, par sa voix, la manière dont elle se meut devant l’appareil, on a toujours l’impression qu’on est avec quelque chose dont on ne connaît pas tout à fait les codes.

C’est difficile d’entrer dans son univers. On est extrêmement curieux parce qu’on a l’impression qu’elle nous laisse un peu à sa porte. On sent que c’est tellement brillant et intelligent que ça nous fascine, mais on est un petit peu à la bourre derrière elle.

Je suppose qu’elle touche à quelque chose d’extrêmement féminin. Peut-être qu’elle est l’artiste musicale femme qui nous emmène le plus près de l’idée d’extase, de schizophrénie de la femme. Ça frise le mystique sans être mystique. Avec elle, je ne sais jamais à qui j’ai affaire. Elle est tellement double, elle est enfant et elle est très vieille aussi. C’est comme une vieille âme, mais en enfant. Même les vêtements, tout ça... On peut très difficilement s’habiller comme elle, on ne voit pas beaucoup de clones de Björk.

Elle est dans un truc barré, elle est barrée. Quelquefois, je suis gêné d’être indécent, de voir quelque chose et de ne pouvoir y arriver moi-même. À la fin d’une séance avec Björk, il y a toujours une frustration finalement. Une frustration très agréable. Mon travail avec Björk n’avait rien à voir avec les représentations esthétiques que j’avais eues jusque-là, quand je portais à l’écran ou en photo des femmes chez qui, souvent, la sexualité dominait. Chez Björk, la sexualité existe mais elle ne s’exprime pas comme ça. Certaines ont l’impudeur de se déshabiller, de se mettre à poil, de faire des choses provocantes, elle a l’impudeur et la provocation de nous montrer quelque chose d’intime mais autre. En même temps, on a envie d’avoir une attitude extrêmement polie vis-à-vis d’elle. J’ai des photos à effet, où elle est un peu plus grimaçante, que je n’utiliserai jamais. À l’arrivée, il doit y avoir une beauté, un côté merveilleux. Comme sa musique : tordue mais belle. »

Most bands try to imitate others. But Björk is as original as Elvis - and she’s got a cuter groin thrust’.

( Directed the ’I Miss You’ video )

Bjork was a fan of Ren & Stimpy, and I read about that and I saw her in concert buying a t-shirt . She was coming to LA to play at the Palace. So I called her manager and asked if she’d get me tickets and she got me a backstage pass. And after the show I went back and met her, we were sitting around, starring at each other and we were both a little bit shy about it. And then I picked up another flyer from another rock concert, turned it over and drew picture of Bjork dancing with Jimmy the idiot boy. She started to giggle and I said ; "You wanna make a video ?" and she said ; "ok".

I had whatsername ? Bjork. Bjork round to dinner the other night, and I want to write something for her. I don’t see why not. She’s far more intelligent than most classical singers.

I’d heard her voice... it was quite a raw, primordial sound, and I was very attracted to this sound. I thought of the ejaculatory prayer called the "Jesus Prayer" – "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me" – and I set it in three languages : in Coptic, in English, and in Greek. I thought the way she sang it was quite wonderful, and it couldn’t possibly be sung by anybody else but her, or someone with a voice very, very similar to hers. It had nothing of a western-trained voice about it. In fact, it wasn’t trained at all, and this is why I liked it so much, because... it had a savage quality, an untamed quality. These are qualities that I like... I liked the simplicity of her, I liked the spontaneity of her, and I liked the result that came forth in Prayer of the Heart.

Stylists have ruined everything. Nobody wants to be Björk. I love Björk. We need Björk.

(Vocalist of London-based dance progressives Fluke. Remixers of ’Big Time Sensuality’ and ’Violently Happy’.)

I think she liked our treatments because of the chunkiness of them, but I could be completely wrong. We didn’t talk about the music when we met, but how shit Iceland is, and London is, and how difficult it is to find good schools for your kids. She’s more concerned about her son’s school than all the crap with being in a band. You can see that she is a professional, that she ’switches on’ and does her show, but you get the feeling she is really sound. You couldn’t keep that image up anyway : she’d end up blasting her head off with a harpoon. In three words : beserk little Eskimo.

She has genuine sexual abandon, whereas a lot of sex symbols are actually frigid.

What impact did Björk have on you growing up ?

She was always really weird, pregnant, dancing around, really strange. (laughs)

Mostly I listen to rock music. I downloaded the new Bjork album, which is really, really interesting stuff.

(Remixed The Sugarcubes’ ’Birthday’ and ’Motorcrash’, and ’Big Time Sensuality’.)

I used to run a club in Manchester called Most Excellent, and had seen her dancing about in the club. She used to come down with Graham Massey and 808 State. I remember once she had the crowd captivated : she went into this strange girlish skip around the club with a rucksack on her back. There was lots of gawping and general amazement. She’s inspiring, frightening, amusing.

I’ve photographed her six or seven times, and this picture was for an American magazine [photo of Björk underwater]. It was a funny shoot because I’m a little scared of water, but I managed to go under without an aqualung. Björk’s very playful and will do whatever you ask. She spent the whole morning underwater, wearing different clothes, and she didn’t complain once. She was very sweet to me because I was so frightened.

I don’t think I’m confident enough yet to be used to being in the limelight because of my style. But I loved the swan dress Bjork wore to the 2001 Oscars. I’d love to have the courage to do the same.

Have you seen any live shows lately that inspired you on that front ?
I feel some type of way about being like, I just saw Björk and it was really inspiring, but … it’s true ! I saw her a few months ago, and I saw how she approached that. And it was really impressive, and it was also really … touching. I feel like I just want my emotions to be at the forefront of my performance, and if anything distracts from that, I’m in trouble. What blew me away was how still her performance was. And also, there are times when I’m onstage when I just want to sing, and a lot of my body movements are just weird. It’s decidedly not-for-you. It’s not cute. I’m just singing, I’m going off. And there’s times when I really want to go … even more off. And Björk gave me permission to do that as much as I fucking want to.

Have you ever met her ?
Yeah, she’s come to a couple of the shows. About a year ago she came to Rough Trade and I met her before the show. It was really cool. She’s somebody that I feel awkwardly comfortable with. It’s like I’m out of my body and looking at myself and being like, “How are you acting so fucking normal right now ?” [Laughs.]

She’s also so inspiring in just learning how to be in the world. Like, how are you so mysterious and elusive but also so relatable ? How can you cultivate this mysteriousness without feeling cold ? That’s the intersection I’m always interested in. I am your homegirl, at the end of the day, but I also feel very … outside. So if you’re finding solace in feeling outside with me, then we’re good to go.

We were doing a show called Fashion Rocks in London last year, and our dressing rooms were right next to each other. Björk had a Peaches CD that was skipping, and I gave her my copy of the CD. So we started talking and we hung out after the show. We exchanged numbers, and later on she contacted me about singing on a track. I’ve always really liked her stuff, so I said, ’Yeah.’

Quand je me suis rendue en Islande, j’ai mieux compris la musique de Björk. On conduisait à travers le pays, avec ces grands espaces, ces montagnes... Ça a fait sens pour moi, tout ce drame musical. Tu peux monter en haut d’une colline et te mettre à chanter aussi fort que tu veux, ou être silencieux. Je suis très inspirée par les paysages, l’environnement. La musique peut être pluvieuse, par exemple. Je cherche une certaine pureté, l’honnêteté, virer toutes les merdes qui peuvent m’entourer. »

When Kent Nagano convinced Björk to tackle the speaking part of Arnold Schoenberg’s 1912 atonal masterpiece Pierrot Lunaire, he was bridging cultural divides with customary cool. The most exciting conductor of his generation and the most idiosyncratic vocalist of hers, exploring the thorniest composer of the 20th century ? The Icelandic electro-songbird was anxious over the classical music world’s perceived arrogance, but Nagano told her that Schoenberg wrote the piece because "he’d had it with the snobs in Germany," she recalled recently. "They’d become so self-obsessed and the gap between educated music people and the common people had become massive."

So the titan of 12-tone music wrote Pierrot for "more of a street person." Björk could relate, and Nagano insisted she experiment. "I do strongly believe in chemistry, which of course is an inexplicable human phenomenon," he said last week, adding that Schoenberg was one of Björk’s favourite composers as a classically-trained child, pre-Sugarcubes. "She’s at ease reading the music and her very imaginative and intense creative skills combined for a working environment that was deeply inspiring."

Great repertoire will impart different meanings at various stages of the listener’s life. But the fear of the unfamiliar, or of instrumental music in general, keeps some from taking the plunge. There’s also the snob factor that initially intimidated Björk. Says Nagano : "I totally sympathize with that nearly overwhelming, fragile feeling of thinking you’re not quite understanding things that everybody else appears to be getting."

By comparison, Nagano confesses it was only relatively recently that he began to appreciate the subtleties of wine, strange for a cultured Californian. "Everyone who attends a concert goes to discover something that is unknown, and that shared sense of discovery is what makes live music so extraordinary. If you go with an open mind, the opportunity for discovery and tremendous emotional reaction can be more invigorating than you could possibly imagine. It’s the opposite of cynicism."

I was completely fascinated by her and screamed right out that this person just has to be a filmstar. And then I will perhaps be able to boast about the fact that I was the one lighting that star.

"I’ve Seen It All" is one of the two songs I’ve written the lyrics for, Lars confesses. The rest of them are written by Björk. I don’t think she was too thrilled by my attempts at a writer. But she is still loyal enough to perform them.

I like her more than she thinks I do and I hope she likes me more than I think she does.

I wrote "I’ve Seen It All". Björk wrote the rest of the soundtrack. I suppose she wasn’t especially enamoured at my attempts to be a lyricist, but she’s been loyal enough to perform them

It has been terrible. But the results are incredible. Björk is not an actor. She is not acting in this film but feeling everything, which is extremely hard on her and on everyone else, too. It was like being with a dying person.

’I’m often asked if I have a favorite photo and I can say without hesitation that it’s this one right here. All of the elements combined to make it one of my favorite moments as a photographer, and it happened purely by chance. I met Bjork the night before when she invited herself along and joined some friends and me for a late night pool game up in Woodstock. At the time she was upstate recording with the Sugarcubes. I was already a fan, and had always wanted to photograph her, and when I asked her if I could she said sure. Just like that. We’d been talking all night, she trusted me, and I guess that was all she needed to go on.

The next day I picked her up and brought her to my friend Ben’s house, who helped out as my assistant for the shoot. I knew he had a lovely forest glade behind his house and I thought the setting fit in nicely with her free spiritedness. As happens often in shoots I’ve done (don’t ask me why), she gradually began to to shed her clothes. I picked out a couple of oversized leaves (a la Eve in the Garden of Eden) and she stepped onto a large boulder. At that moment it started to drizzle, she stood on tippy-toe and opened her mouth to catch a raindrop on her tongue. Click.

Having spent a long time talking with her the night before I felt this image really captured her essence - a woodland sprite, a free spirit, playful, earthy, and open . (Some other reasons why this is a favorite ? No makeup artists, no stylists, no trendy fashions, no managers, no publicists, no record label politics, no artificial lighting, no gimmicks, no self-consciousness. Just natural light, some foliage, and Björk.)’

Bjork and I had a blast collaborating on these photo-illustrations, back when I was a photographer and slowly moving over to painting and illustration. These were done well before the days of Photoshop.

With the help of some wonderful stylists and hair and make-up people, she and her Sugarcubes bandmate Siggi were transformed into some of my favorite fairy tale, nursery rhyme and fictional characters. I then posed them in front of a white backdrop, photographed them, made color xeroxes of the shots I liked, and then painted the backgrounds directly onto the color xeroxes. Seems so primitive now !

At college she became a DJ and something of a regular on the London party scene, and in the early ‘90s was a patron of the city’s jazz clubs. Here she encountered the Brand New Heavies, who later recommended her to Björk. The Icelander was putting together the touring band for Debut and on the hunt for a female keyboardist who could sing, and Leila fit the bill. Soon after she was playing live on stage to a sold out Wembley Arena for what was only Björk’s second ever solo gig.

Invited back for the Post world tour in 1995, Leila put her foot down about doing any kind of backing vocals this time. “It was a bit like Tom Waits duetting with Mariah Carey,“ she laughs. “She sings so high, it was like torture for me.“ Björk’s first and last comparison to Mariah Carey aside, Leila was appeased by being put in front of a mixing desk for the very first time, giving her ultimate control over everything the audience heard. After baffling a few technicians with her naivety for the desk at first (“They’d say stuff like, ‘and if you press this button, you can hear that channel through the headphones.’ And I’d be like ‘Noooooo way !’ They thought I was taking the piss !“) this new tour duty would form the basis of her future career and sound.