After spending nearly two years back in her home country of Iceland where she DJed to small crowds and had a small role in The Northman alongside Alexander Skarsgård, Björk is ready to take the music world by storm — in a way only Björk can do. First, she released her new 10th studio album Fossora in the fall and now after 16 years since her last Coachella performance, the 57-year-old is returning to the desert stage with all of her greatest hits. For her sets on Sunday, April 16 and April 23, Björk will go back through her three-decade discography accompanied by a local orchestra, for a performance that fans won’t forget.
Here are excerpts from a recent interview with Björk as she prepares for her return to the Coachella stage.
Peter Reynolds: I have to ask about The Northman. What made you join the cast?
BJÖRK: Well, Robert Eggers, the director, came to Iceland and I introduced him to a friend of mine, Sjon, and then they kept in touch, and I didn’t know but two years later they wrote a whole film script. I was accidentally some sort of godmother of the film, and they asked me if I wouldn’t want to appear in it. At first I said, “No, I’m not really interested, sorry. I don’t want to brag but I’ve been offered quite a lot of big roles through the years and only said no to them.” And Sjon asked again, and I guess we have this unwritten contract where if we ask each other something we say yes. And then when he asked me to be part of this film I said yes as a favor to him. TO be fair, it was only one day of shooting so The Northman only took one day out of my life so not a big sacrifice to be honest.
PR: How did it feel to be an oracle?
BJÖRK: I had a wonderful day. Robert is amazing to work with; he’s very fertile and very vibrant and a wonderful director. Also, my scene was with Alexander Skarsgård and we filed until eight in the morning or something. It was very tough to shoot in this sense and he was wonderful to work with and incredibly helpful to me.
PR: What made you pick Fossora for the title? And if that’s the female version of the Latin word for digger, what are you digging for?
BJÖRK: Well in this case, it was sort of what 7 billion people were doing together. We were sort of quarantining and digging a hole in the ground — obviously not literally but more sort of emotionally — where we were shooting down roots because we were in the same spot for so long. It’s like making this little nest with your loved ones and friends and coworkers and family and digging into the ground, into the soil and shooting down roots.
PR: Then the artwork pretty much sums up the album, doesn’t it?
BJÖRK: Yeah, I asked for a set. We built the set and took photographs so it would look like I was underground. Also, the crouching position of my body, it’s this kind of grounding position. Also, the colors, this kind of dark, dark green and dark, dark red are very earthy colors. The plants, they kind of stand for all the music and the growth that happened underground, that it was a very fertile sort of environment. A hopeful environment.
PR: As your last albums came with apps, specially developed instruments, and other technological gadgets. Why are you shying away from that this time around? Or is that on purpose?
BJÖRK: I made an app for myself where I can — now because I write most of my songs walking outside and I wanted to be able to hike outside and make chords while I’m walking, in the moment. This is something I’ve never been able to do before, so there are sone songs written with this app so it was more selfish. You know, I think this is quite exciting where we are with technology now with Zoom and everything, it’s everywhere. It’s like for everyone. And first time in human history, 7 billion people are watching the same TV shows, the same Netflix and I find that very, very interesting. That’s ground-breaking, in a way.
PR: And Gabber Modus Operandi? How did you find out about these guys from Indonesia?
BJÖRK: Well, like I said, I am always sort of online looking for new stuff and I discovered them three or four years ago and I was listening to them especially in the pandemic when I didn’t only DJ in my living room but I also DJ’d a couple of places downtown when we had moments of where the rules loosened up a bit in the middle of the pandemic. We did a couple of DJ nights in the buildings where only a few—maybe 50—people could be. I just thought it was really interesting every time I was DJ-ing and then every time I would put them on, people would really start to dance and everybody would run to the dancefloor. I think maybe they just have a rawness that I love and the fact that they are mixing together gamelan rhythms, which is authentic for them, of course, and then putting techno sounds on it so you have this half speed and then double speed. Something in me wanted to go really rough and raw and move away from this kind of technological sort of perfection, to be more messy.
PR: What made you come up with Troll Gabba? Do you think that’s what trolls are listening to when they party?
BJÖRK: Well, I know I listen to it when I’m a troll. I think we’re all trolls sometimes, you know? Sometimes we feel like a troll and sometimes we feel like a delicate cat or bird. I think when we feel like a troll, we want to just jump up and down with our fist in the air and get some cathartic release. I think it’s important to dance regularly, all the way to your old age. I think it’s important to have that as part of your lifestyle.
PR: That’s exactly what we were missing for two and a half years. We couldn’t go out and dance at all.
BJÖRK: Well, at least you can dance in your living room.
PR: If we talk about the lyrics: to what degree is this album influenced by the passing of your mother, Hildur, especially songs like “Sorrowful Soil” and “Ancestress?”
BJÖRK: Yeah, these two songs are written about my mother. “Sorrowful Soil” was written maybe a year and a half before she passed away, so it’s sort of when me and my brother discovered that this was the last chapter in her life, and so it has a lot of sadness in it. I feel “Ancestress,” the later song I wrote about her, that was written after she left us and it’s more sort of about the celebration of life and kind of how like the Irish or the Mexican people look at funerals as an opportunity for celebration. There is some sadness there, of course, but it’s mostly this sort of celebratory celestial ritual when you are saying goodbye to a soul.
PR: How much of a role model was your mother to you?
BJÖRK: Hmm, well this is a big question. I can’t remember what poet said, “None of my poems are about my mother, but all of them are about my mother.” Obviously, I could answer this for a year and still not be finished. I don’t think she was a role model in the sort of way that the sort of patriarchal sort of classical housewife in the kitchen role it’s supposed to be and I’m very happy for that. I didn’t miss any of that, really. I think especially as I get older, I understand better that she was a role model in a sense that she left the patriarchy and she rented a small house on the outskirt of Reykjavik in a community of some wild characters, and we lived in a house that was leaking when it rained and we had to wake up in the middle of the night to empty the bucket. But this was a very happy period for us and I think with a sort of sense of freedom. And she wasn’t really an authority, I wasn’t brought up with discipline of things like this. I mean, some of it was generational because I think everybody in my generation were “the key children,” the generation of kids who had keys around their neck. The kids, when they came home from school, their moms weren’t there and they opened the door and were home by themselves until their parents came home. I think Generation X, these people became very self-sufficient and they don’t complain much. I think it was a good thing that we very quickly learned how to take care of ourselves. My mother heard me singing a lot as a kid, so she put me in music school when I was 5 and I was in music school for 10 years and I’m grateful to her for that. Also, she put out an album with me when I was eleven. Like ive said before in interviews, I had very complicated feelings about that. It was very exciting to go in a studio and learn how to work. The other people recording the album were amazing teachers to me. But I had quite complicated feelings about becoming a celebrity in Iceland at the age of 11. I think I was too young but my mother meant well. It was with good intention. I don’t think she meant bad. And for two years, all these grown-ups were helping me to make my album. So I am grateful to her for that.
PR: Now your daughter is also singing on the last song of the album, on “Her Mother’s House.” She’s a model and an actress and she is said to be recoding her own album as well.
BJÖRK: Yes.
PR: What made you write “Atopos,” “Fungal City,” and “Freefall”? Are you in love?
BJÖRK: There are some romantic songs in there for sure. I think there is both romantic love on the album and also parental for me as a mother and as a daughter, also. But there are some songs like “Fossora” that is more like the love of the human race or some sort of advice, advice to myself for sure, like how to process things and more on. I feel my albums have always had a balance between love, friendship love and romantic love. Obviously, love is a huge subject, right?
PR: Where do you see yourself in today’s music industry? Are you someone who had a decent amount of success and is using that to simply be free and do whatever you please?
BJÖRK: To be honest, I’ve always done that. Since I was a teenager, I was in punk bands, and we were on an indie label in Iceland where we were not about making money. I come from this background since I was 14 years old, this kind of DIY where you don’t have to sell out or sell your soul to corporations to be a musician. You don’t have to. And if you always sell your work and you have your own creative control and your own masters, you can do whatever you want for the rest of your life. And that’s pretty much what I’m doing. If a lot of people like it, that always a bonus, but I’ve always been aware that one day it could all go away, but I would still keep making music at my own speed.
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