Dull Flame of Desire

Björk à propos du titre Dull Flame of Desire
In your duets with Antony [Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons], especially The Dull Flame of Desire, his voice is more « feminine », and you have a very « masculine » side to your voice — did you play off these contrasts intentionally ? We had tried to sing a lot of stuff, but it was too whispery and sweet. We were two people trying not to step on each other’s toes. So one morning I arrived with a melody I had written in the middle of the night and a lyric by a Russian poet. The [translated] syllables fit perfectly, and we joked about now it was time to belt it out like two divas, be singers. There was a sensation of merging vocally, moments where we didn’t know whose voice was whose

Björk and the beats behind Volta, metromix.com - 08/05/2007

Dull Flame of Desire
Dull Flame…’ was not written with Antony in mind, but we had been singing together for a while and I felt we both were too shy and singing too sweetly, perhaps worried we would step on each other’s toes. So I woke up one morning with this melody I had written earlier, in the middle of the night, and a poem by a Russian poet from the 19th Century and said : “Okay, no more sweet stuff. Now we are going to belt it out, diva style. We can sing words by a third party, so it is neutral – not my world and not your world“. Then we sang and improvised from that melody for a whole day and I later spent few days editing [the song] together, focusing on the emotional chronology we went through.

www.drownedinsound.com, April 24 2007

Dull Flame of Desire
I’ve tried so many beats on this song, but I think it should start with silence, and I think it should build up and then you should sort of take over. And it should be a beat that’s not a normal drumbeat but more like a heartbeat or something that you feel. Brian Chippendale improvised it in one take.

the New York Times, 29 april 2007

Dull Flame Of Desire
wrote the melody before I met him and thought it would be good if one is after… that moment just after things are fully ripe, when the flowers turn brown a little. It’s sort of a continuation of “Pagan Poetry“ on Vespertine for me. And these words I have kept in my diary for like eight years now, waiting for the right moment. It was helpful for me and Antony to have the words written by the third person so we could meet in the middle.

Harp Magazine, November 2007

Dull Flame of Desire
I booked a studio in Jamaica and we just swam in the ocean, ate lots of fruit and sang. He’s a very generous man and it was a beautiful experience working with him.

the Big Issue - 31.03.2008

the video for Dull Flame of Desire
When we did the competition for "Innocence", where all the fans sent in videos, they sent in like 400 videos. There were some that I thought were amazing, made by really talented visual people who had maybe never done this before, but they didn’t totally fit with the mood of "Innocence". So I contacted them and asked them if they would work together and do ["Dull Flame of Desire"]. In that song, we repeat the same verse over and over again. So I thought it would be interesting to have one verse presented by one director, and then the second by another director, and then the third by another. I had never done that before, and it was quite exciting. We recorded our part in front of a green screen, and sent it by email to the directors, one in Japan, one in Spain, and one in France....

pitchforkmedia, January 2 2008