creating the songs

Is it little ideas or whole songs that you take into the studio ?

I think its a mix, especially with this record. Before, I had done ’Homogenic,’ ’Vespertine,’ and ’Medúlla’ I kind of knew beforehand a little bit about the emotional envelope I wanted things to be in. I wanted to do ’Homogenic’ with just volcanic beats, a very Icelandic album for me, and with very over-romantic violins playing almost Icelandic national anthems. And ’Vespertine’ was very influenced by me just getting my first laptop, and I wanted to create a universe that was sort of virtual reality, songs from the ether, without any body, blood, or muscles, and my voice mostly whispering. And things that download really well, I was really curious, "Okay, we’ve got a new format. What downloads well, and what downloads badly ?" So it ended up being harps, celestes, and glockenspiels, things that sound even better when they’re downloaded. And with ’Medúlla’ obviously it was a vocal album.

But with this album, I was just like, "Okay, I don’t want anything like that." And maybe what was most influential on the album, especially looking back now, was probably two things : One of them that I had sort of been in my own studio working a lot for a few years. And I had gotten pregnant, had a baby, breastfeeding, all this kind of stuff. And then suddenly my daughter was old enough to go to kindergarten. I guess I was probably suffering from cabin fever, so in the begging of this album I was just like, "Okay, let’s go out ! Let’s go and have an adventure, go into an environment that is the unknown to me, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen." And before I felt that strongly, it probably affected the collaborations, the fact that I was really going for the album emotionally. That as long as it’s adventurous, I’m doing it. A bit of a one-track mind, but that was sort of what drove this album.

XFM Interview, April 2007