"Náttúra est plus une manifestation et un cri de ralliment qu’une conférence." Björk

synth | bass : Matthew Herbert
drums : Brian Chippendale
beats : Mark Bell
Mixage : Mark Spike Stent

Thom Yorke est présent dans les choeurs.

sortie : 20 octobre 2008 exclusivité iTunes | 27 octobre 2008

cd promo

Artwork

Remixes

Náttúra (Switch Remix) (5:18)

D’abord présenté en ecoute sur le myspace de Switch , puis sorti sur iTunes le 19 mars 2009

Björk au sujet du titre

Pitchfork : Let’s talk about the song itself. How did it come together ?

Björk : It came from my frustration after doing the Náttúra concert. I felt, wow, this all went really well, but it was just one more environmental event that wasn’t going to change anything. The aluminum factories were just going to stick their fingers in their ears for five minutes. I was touring, in hotel rooms, dressing rooms around the world, with a lot of spare time.

I had all the files from Volta on my computer. I was really excited by sort of tribal drums, and felt maybe if I had spent another year on Volta I would have gone further into that sort of stuff. I took Brian Chippendale’s drums for "Earth Intruders", which we actually didn’t use ; we used him mostly on "The Dull Flame of Desire". So I started editing that like crazy in the hotel rooms, and not in a 4/4 way, which a lot of beat editing is usually, but rather in clusters. But it didn’t have to fit to a grid or Logic or all these software programs that are all about the Lego. So I took Brian’s drums and made this new song out of his drums. I think the beat from "Náttúra" would be really hard to play live, even for Brian Chippendale. I mean, he does incredible things, I don’t mean it like that. But it sort of was harnessing his energy and taking it in more organic units than grid units.

Once I had that, I sang on top of it. I just sang it in one take. It’s just a celebration of nature and how unpredictable it is and you cannot control it and you just have to kind of like let it fall all over you and go with it.

Pitchfork : How did Thom Yorke get involved ?

Björk : I’ve always been so against this kind of, like, send to someone and they sing and then they send. I was like, fuck that. Actually, this is the only song out of all of the collaborations I’ve done over all the years. But I was like what should I do ? They are going to build those aluminum factories oh my god and I am stuck in a hotel room in Singapore ! What can I do about this ?

So I emailed Thom Yorke. He was in another hotel somewhere, I think in Germany or something, and he just sang on top of that into his computer and emailed it back to me.

Then I was with Mark Bell, he was with me on tour, and he programmed these little things to support what I edited from Brian’s drums. Just put sort of like Photoshop on the bass drum, because it was all taken it out of context, what I edited. So like the bass drum, where the one is, needed accents, so he did very subtle stuff like that.

I think we all had a go at the bassline. I knew I wanted a huge, rude bassline. I tried a few and they were either too rude or I don’t know what. I wanted it to be the main thing. Then Thom Yorke tried a bassline, Mark Bell tried a bassline, everybody had a go. And then I was in London and I called my friend Matthew Herbert. I said, "I am in a hotel room and I need a bassline now ! They are going to build the aluminum factories ! Come quick !" [laughs] It was hilarious. He’s one of the funniest people I know. He just came with a suitcase of gadgets. He was like, "I feel like the bass doctor ! Emergency ! Save the planet !" Just then and there, with headphones and mini bar biscuits, he did a bassline on it. Then I had the song ready. And Mark "Spike" Stent mixed it for free.

Then I came to Iceland eight weeks ago and I was like OK, let’s put it out. But then I thought, let’s face it, it’s gonna get all this media attention. I can use it as a torch to put that light on the problems. But I can’t do that now. So that’s why I ended up going to this eight weeks of going out there and meeting all the job development centers in the countryside, reading every single suggestion of a seed company there ever has been in Iceland that I know of and meeting all the companies that are doing that anyway. I don’t want to take too much credit, there are a lot of people out there doing that anyway, but maybe what I did was more just bring them all together.

And then suddenly this depression or whatever it is, it doesn’t have a name yet, this crisis. It happened to be that what most people are saying is that we in Iceland have not been doing our homework. This is why we have just been jumping for Alcoa and jumping for this and that.

I’m sure this is something Pitchfork understands. I mean, I understand it. I started going at age 16 in a van driving around Europe playing, not eating for a few days and sleeping on peoples’ floors. You cannot just buy a package deal. Everything that’s good takes a long time to grow.

+++ Interview complète Pitchfork (en anglais)

Brian Chippendale au sujet du titre

(interview de Lightning Bolt - Brian Gibson / Brian Chippendale)

Björk is putting you on another song, and giving you credit ?

BC : I got my first email in while in which she said, “I’m working on this project, and I’ve recut some of your beats into a new song,” with Mark Bell, someone she always works with, putting a bass line over it.

Yeah. Did you ever hear LFO’s music ? It’s cool, very interesting, all low frequency. She’s mega-into low tone, back to Public Enemy, trip hop days.

BC : No, I haven’t. Ohhhh ! She was talking about low tones a lot when we recorded that stuff. I only got to hang out with her that one day. So she was asking me if I would just donate my work. They had this concert named Nátturá. Someone is trying to develop...

...flooding the highlands in Iceland for energy for aluminum smelting plants.

BC : She recorded this song to raise money to hire someone who can be in charge of a website to raise awareness about this issue. So, of course, I said I’d donate... then I saw the credit which said “totally written by Björk and Brian Chippendale”. Either it was a misprint, because I didn’t influence it, or, I guess, it’s a just a really simple song with just a theme and her singing, so maybe the beat is a big part of the music of the song. She’s very generous.

She wrote a whole diatribe lately on people taking false credit for producing her songs. She wanted to say, “Women can produce music.” There’s a notion that women don’t have the ability, and that’s not right.

BC : Like it’s always the man who comes in. No, she writes that stuff. There’s very few things she hasn’t written on her albums.

LAB : Her personal repetoire of 250 songs to date is a lot, plus the ‘Cubes and other bands before that.

BC : I was actually watching some of her videos on You Tube last night. Somebody sent me a link to one I hadn’t seen. The ones that are actually her videos are amazing. It’s definitely, always her. They center around her face.

She’s a chameleon, never quite the same twice. That’s a good thing, as an artist, with the diversity she’s trying to represent.

BC : She is. If not the greatest moment, it was definitely a highlight of my life, as a musician and an artist, just to have that privilege ; to get in there and do that took me by surprise.

She likes to surprise and delight. That’s something about Lightning Bolt that may have attracted her to you. You’re not into a negative message, whereas a lot of heavy metal is.

BC : Yeah, we’re just trying to be positive, happy people.

She’s very optimistic and happy, and she ought to be, considering her success. She does give money freely to causes.

BC : Didn’t she bail out Crass or something when they were being evicted ?

She did once say she was the “responsible one”. I think it’s true. You can’t have freedom without responsibility.

BC : Without it you’re just an anarchist, which is okay as long as it’s responsible, a little bit of a misnomer.

A propos du titre

"Nattura" is described as "more of a protest and rallying cry than a lecture," and the aggressive drums and Björk’s piercing vocals certainly bear that out. The only other sound heard, practically, is what would seem to be Yorke’s voice, distinctive but certainly heavily processed as it floats in the background. It’s a pulse-quickening song that flies by in three and a half minutes. pitchforkmedia.com

According to Björk’s publicist, "Björk and Thom did collaborate on [the] single during the summer while Björk was on tour. All parties involved shared various files and Björk produced the resulting song." pitchforkmedia.com

Presse

"Another brilliant bout of seamless chaos. She teams up with Thom Yorke and proceeds will go towards an environmental campaign in Iceland. The wild, tribal drumbeats and eerie, passionate vocals confirm her status as one of the most interesting and innovative performers of our time." The SUN 5/5

"Náttúra’ is simply berserk, and will no doubt divide the eponymous movement as much as it will her more casual fans." +++ wearstrousers.com

Forum

 nouvelle chanson - Náttúra

News

 Björk à propos de Náttúra, le coffret Volta et son prochain album
 Náttúra feat. Thom Yorke en téléchargement sur iTunes !
 Björk compose un titre inédit : Náttúra