In my head, as a kid I always had this romantic idea of me in a lighthouse with a pipe organ, being a composer, and kind of doing it all myself. I didn’t need any outside stimulus. Also, because I enjoyed being on my own so much, I never really understood the word ’loneliness’. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature. Now it’s all about thousands of people, and I’m communicating with them full-on.
People always think the future is alien and cold. Just before Noah’s flood they all said, ’The future is doomed, we’re all doomed.’ It’s basically fear of change.
I’m very hard on myself. The film was probably one of the biggest things for me to get over. Then again, with every album I walk away from there’s always a moment where I think, ’Shit, I could have done that better.’ And then the trick, of course, is to use that as fuel to do another thing. Through the years you learn to use the disappointment as drive for the next project.
I guess I have days where I think I’m pretty pleased with the amount of work I’ve done, and then there are days when I go Fucking hell, I’m never going to get it together before I die. I’ve just got 50 years. Fucking hell. You lazy slag, you know. Sort it out.
My future ? I just want to keep on going. I get so easily bored, I have to find something new every fucking day. But then again, I don’t even have to find it. Because there are so many things out there. Films, books and just ... people. That’s what I’m up to, really, when it comes down to it.
Musically, I feel that I’m just beginning, now that I’ve learned a lot of things, both about studios
and about myself and after all the collaborations. I’ve learned a lot from all the musicians I’ve worked with. In a way doing this greatest hits album, you kind of empty your attic or something, you’ve got a clean slate. I think it’s time to get a lot more slates and start a lot more serious work. I still feel I haven’t done it as well as I’d like to, so I have far to go. But I’ve been brave so far. I’ve learned a lot of stuff. But I think when I’m 80 and I look back, the best stuff I’m most proud of, I’ll probably do when I’m about 50 or something. So I’ve got to keep up the hard work.
I guess I’m on this stupid mission — I know it sounds like a silly fairy tale, but I’d like to try to make the perfect song. I still haven’t, and I’ve got 50 years to still try, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.
I’m naturally quite introvert, but if it’s a question of going to the middle of England and becoming the most extrovert person in the universe, if it’s a question of traveling the world like a lunatic on 950 cappuccinos, I’m up for that. If it’s a question of not communicating and going and isolating myself for 50 years so I can get as much work done as possible, I’m up for that.
So what’s next for you, in terms of your music ? Are you working on any other projects, or is Náttúra your only focus ?
Well, this has been taking me two months now. I’m staying maybe one more month right now. I’m not very good at doing two things at the same time. I’ve never been good at the walk and bubblegum thing. I’ve been doing this 16 hours a day. I haven’t had a day off. But it’s very exciting, too, just to meet all these people doing really fertile stuff. It’s sort of where I come from anyway, hanging out with people who believe in something incredible. DIY kind of. It’s really exciting. I’m also meeting a lot of people that sort of have to do with what I want to do next anyway, but sometimes it’s good not to plan too much, just kind of jump in there and see what happens.
I’ve also been trying to get someone to Iceland to suggest green industries to Icelanders and introduce us to the companies that haven’t even been built yet in the world. This man Paul Hawken, who is famous in the States, he has agreed to come here in November. He’s supposed to be a green capitalist. He’s a functionalist, not just an idealist. I’m hoping he can unite these two polarized groups in Iceland. I’m setting up a meeting with him and the people in power. Because I think private money people can put money into those seed companies, but most of all, the government has to do it. It has to be a mixture of two things. It cannot just be visionary money people.
I know very well inside me what the beginning point is. There’s going to be a lot of craftsmanship involved, similar maybe more to Vespertine, which took me like three years to make, and a lot of it was just me sitting around with a laptop, making microbeats. There were like from 40 to 120 tracks of noises on every single song, it was like mosaic.
Volta was very immediate, a very physical project. I knew when I was making it, I could have spent probably three more years on it and do it much better, but I just needed to be spontaneous and physical and go out. Because I hadn’t toured for four years, I had to nourish that side of me, to be on stage in front of a crowd, more visceral. Maybe it was after having a baby, you sort of go in a cocoon, you kind of go less physical, more programming. [Björk’s daughter Isadora is six years old.]
So I think I’ve come around and I want to make an album now that probably will take me four years to make or three. I think it’s too early to talk about the details because it will jinx it. But I know sort of what it’s about. And in a funny way, it’s not that unrelated to all the people I’m meeting here in Iceland. That’s how things are sometimes.
It’s funny touring Volta now, because already in my head I’m moving towards my next project. Because emotionally, Volta’s songs are so huge. And although it is a lot about me being in a woman some ways, Volta is quite macho too, like a warrior. I’m not feeling the warrior any more. I’ve done that. My next project’s going to be less interested in hooliganism. There’ll still be brass, lots of brass, but maybe taking it to more chocolatey places. But emotionally I’ve been too bombastic for a while, you know ? Like, hmm, Björk, why don’t you just join Manchester United Fan Club ? [punches fist in the air and sings] Oh-way-oh-way-way-oh-way ! [giggles] But if there was a time in my life for the flag and the trumpet, that’s gone for me now. It’s time to move on.
The last time me and Polly Harvey met we were joking that we would be fucking 80 years old and still trying to talk each other out of stage-diving because our bones are getting too old for it ! But I might not be on stage because I get a very big kick out of working with other people and I can easily picture me writing songs for others or producing others - I mean hopefully, and not being big-headed, but I would love to do that. It’s like a tangent or a dream. Or writing musicals. I would also love to teach. But it will always be music, I think, because it wasn’t like I picked music, it was music taht picked me. Sometimes it’s quite weird because I try to get away from it, but no matter how far I try to go, I always somehow get back to it. It’s an obsession.
I had a lot of music in my head when I was a kid and this is the closest I’ve got to making it. To be making that music now is literally a dream come true. But I still think I’ve got very far to go. It helps to come from a country where the older you get the more mature you are - in England and the States, it seems the closer you are to being 20 in a sports car with the roof open the better it is, and anything away from that is downhill. My grandmother is still painting : it’s just between her and herself but she’s still moving closer to the target, and that is how I want to be when I’m her age.
If I have any vision of my life, I think I’ll be singing until I die, about ninety years old. It’s funny, all the attention I’m getting, but I don’t think I’m hooked on it. I could just as well move to a little island and live by the ocean and just be the village singer or whatever. Singing on Friday and Saturday nights, writing tunes for the rest of the week. That’s my role.
My life is too busy at the moment. But who knows what will happen ? I might go on the Punch and Judy show (ndlr. spectacle de marionnettes célèbre au Royaume Uni) – I mean the Richard and Judy show (ndlr. émission télévisée britannique présentée par le couple marié Richard Madeley et Judy Finnigan. (2001-2008)). I’ll try anything once.
