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Bjork Interview
Mixing It: Welcome to Mixing It. And we're delighted to have on tonight's show, sitting in for the whole show, Björk, who's going to be talking about her music and talking about some of the cds she's brought in. Thank you very much for coming in, Björk. B: Thanks for inviting me. MI: Before we play some of the cds - a very interesting stack of cds - you've brought in, we thought we'd play a track from your latest album, 'Vespertine', and we've selected - or I think you've selected -it - 'Harm of Will'. What is it about this track that makes it a particular favourite? B: I guess it caught the mood I was after really well; it was a challenge for me, I wanted to go really lyrical, so it wasn't beat-orientated. And it was like freetime, and it was sort of poetry-based, as opposed to verse-chorus-verse-chorus. MI: There's a very nice effect: it sound's as though you've cut up your own breath; it sounds like you've sampled your own breathing and cut it up, is that right? B: Yeah, I took the vocal and... I'd just gotten into my laptop at the time; I'd just learnt the features you learn first when you're really, really stupid: basically cut and add it - cut and paste. I just went for it... MI: Let's hear it MI: That was 'Harm of Will', by Björk, and that was from her most recent album, Vespertine. Björk, something I love about this album are the very lush orchestrations that you did with Vince Mendoza. How do you actually work together to come up with an orchestration like that? B: Well, with this particular song, I had a synth sound which was like a tremolo, just like a really naff kind of 'dithethethe-dithethethe', and I would play the whole arrangement on synthesiser. Which is pretty identical to what it is on the album. And then he would get it, and he would have to - just by ear - we also printed it out for him, actually, to be fair... MI: Because he's based in America, isn't he? B: Yeah...print out for him just the synth, the computer printout of what I had just played. And then he would orchestrate it for a fifty-piece orchestra. MI: And when was the first time you would hear this orchestration? B: That was...yeah, you know, right? Like we would prepare all the songs for two years, and then you get an orchestra together and it's really expensive and then you hear all that crap synthy stuff you've been doing with naff synth sounds - like string sounds - you hear them in the space of two days, song after song after song after song, and you're just like lump in throat the whole time. It's very, very rewarding. MI: So you're pleased with the way it turned out? B: Very pleased. There were other songs where he would also bring notes, he would write, it wouldn't only be orchestration, he would also arrange. That particular song I probably arranged and he orchestrated, so I was very, very pleased. Out of the ones I've worked with so far he's very good: all the different colours he can get out of an orchestra. And I really needed it for this album: I wanted a very see-through textural string sound, as opposed to a loud melodic one. So it had to be someone who knew about the fifty different layered things you can do with a string orchestra. And again, I wanted this album, string-wise, not to be everything played on ten, and over-romantic, but everything played on two or three, and that is a lot harder to orchestrate, and you really need someone who really knows what he's doing. MI: I think it was important also that you kept the beats well in the background, obviously, or that kind of sound that you were going for. B: Yeah, that song is not sequenced at all; it's completely freetime. There are other songs where we played to a click track, but, like I said before, I really wanted to be lyrical. MI: Talking of great orchestration, the next track that we're going to play - the first one that you've brought in - is by John Tavener. Tell us about this piece of music. B: Yeah, I guess this is the piece I heard first when I fell in love with John Tavener. I'd sort of known a little bit about him - not that much, to be honest - and then I heard this - I actually heard it a couple of years before I did Vespertine, and it was just so exotic and when you take that very clean, classical world and go really decadent and exotic and definitely lyrical. It's gorgeous. MI: That was 'To a Child Dancing in the Wind', composed by John Tavener and sung by Patricia Rosario, the first of an interesting selection of cds that our guest for tonight, Björk, has brought in. And, apparently, Björk, you were saying that John Tavener has actually written a piece for you, and you've collaborated with him. B: Yeah, I almost blush. I think it might have been Brodsky's idea, or something - Brodsky's Quartet [sic], which I was working with a lot, and I was telling them how much I liked this piece. And they were saying, 'Oh, why don't we just ask him', and I was like [sharp intake of breath] - you don't just do that, you know - and so, yeah, we recorded it - it's not out yet - it's a prayer of the heart; he based it on a monk he saw in India that had been meditating for so long that his body was dead and they were going to bury him or something, but then they figured out that he was in such a euphoric state that his body didn't matter any more. And he based a piece on that, so it's very, very pure. MI: And you just sang it? Or did you contribute more than that? B: I just sang it. But it was incredible for me, something I've never experienced before, that someone who's obviously a good composer would check out my range, my vocal range... MI: So he'd listen to your records? B: Yeah, and he had to work out - I felt like a gun in somebody's hand - he had to work out my range, what I could do, and then just threw this song through me. And you're just like a tool. MI: And was it what you'd expected? B: Yeah, I guess it was already fifty times more than I already had dreamed of, the whole thing was quite magical…we would spend some times together and have some dinners…he's really into some pretty full-on debates about the small things in life, like death and religion and love... MI: Nice controversy and mysticism in equal portions. Well, we don't have a recording from that, but we do have a recording from what I think is an absolutely fantastic album, Homogenic - we're actually going backwards in time through the albums you've released - and from this album, Björk, you've chosen a track which I'm very fond of, called 'Unravel'. What is it about this song that you like so much? B: I think it's very complete. I guess your aim, when you're in my job, is for the lyric and the music and the mood, everything working as one, and I think with this song we managed to do that pretty well. Sometimes it's separated, you know. I think I'm most happy when the words and the song come together. MI: Is it a very personal song? B: Yes and no, not more than the other ones. I've tried to do unpersonal [sic] music, but I'm rubbish at it. MI: That was 'Unravel' - Björk singing, obviously - from the album Homogenic. A lovely track, that, aside from the lyrics, which I think are very expressive, conveying a simple, loving sentiment very well. It's interesting the way you've used your voice almost like a set of bells in that. Was that conscious? You've got the various cadences all rolling off each other... B: Hmm, I guess it was not conscious, but I guess something I discovered with the album after Vespertine was -- maybe I started there somewhere -- to do backing vocals that stand for my conscience, and then you have a sort of Pinocchio and Jeremy [sic] Cricket having a debate: 'Do it!' 'No, don't do it!' 'Do it!' 'No, don't do it!' I'm probably being analytical about myself now, which is a bit of a dangerous thing... MI: That's what you're here to be... B: ...but I think that's why there's the bell thing, it overlaps. MI: Homogenic: this was the album where I first came across you working with Mark Bell, because the beats are really quite hard and industrial on this album, aren't they? B: Yeah, I wanted to do distorted beats that sounded like volcanoes, because this was gonna be my Icelandic album, you know, if there ever was one, with an Icelandic string octet and volcanic beats. And I'd actually done the beats to songs like 'Bachelorette' and 'Joga' and 'Five Years' before Mark Bell joined in. But I guess with Mark Bell, like with a lot of people I work with, it was a long…I met him first in 1990, we kept in touch... MI: Had you heard his LFO records? B: Yeah, I loved them, I thought it was the best thing ever. And then he would do remixes for me, we would talk about - like how nerds talk on the phone - about things, and then in '96, six years later, I asked if he would come and contribute to Homogenic in Spain. And he said, 'Yeah, I'll come over for two weeks', and he stayed for six months. And then we ended up completing almost everything for each other for four years. Usually with most people I know them pretty well when I work with them. MI: We're going to play out with the Ensemble remix of 'Sun in My Mouth' from Björk's latest album, Vespertine. B: Thank you. |
