Morgunbladid  1996-06-02

By Elin Palmadottir

Translated by G.L.Hjalmarsson  dr.gunni@SAGA.IS

Highlights from Elin Palmadottir's interview with Bjork.


"Björk ræð ferðinni Sjálf"


 Are you going to get married or is that just gossip?

"I don't know. Everybody else seems to know that better than me. But 
that's true, Goldie is my boyfriend. He's half Jamaican and half 
Scottish, great mix, that reminds me of an Icelander. We met when his 
band supported me. And he's going to play in Reykjavik too. He has never 
married, but I am divorced. I really want to get married, but I am in 
the "chicken-step-business", I only take one step at a time. I don't 
really want to decide, I think it's good to have it undecided like it 
is. I still suspect I will eventually end up married again."

 Once in a while you come home to cozy Iceland, where you're left alone,
 right?

"I try, I came home last time last xmas. The worst thing is that I 
wasn't left alone. I have never experienced that before in Iceland. 
Iceland was always my shelter, where I could go to rest. But I gave up 
after last xmas. I was going insane, people stared at me and screamed at 
me if I was doing something, like walking down the street. I got fed up, 
said bye to my friends and went out to the country alone. One day I was 
walking alone out in the lava when a jeep drives past me. The driver 
sees me and stops, a family man sends out his kids. They came running to 
me and poked at me. It was like the father had seen a dinosaur in the 
lava and sent out his kids to look at her. They didn't look me in the 
eyes or say good-day or anything. This has never happend before or after 
and it was really hard for me. Next time when I come home I'll just meet 
my friends and go straight out to the lava. At least not be much out. 
Maybe this is like that because I have been abroad for so long time 
before. If I'd live in Iceland maybe people would stop screaming at me. 
I hope so at least."

 The Bangkok incident.

"I think that was the third time in my life that I have defended myself 
with my fists. That is just not in me. This was quite hectic there on 
the Bangkok airport. The nine biggest TV-stations in Asia and CNN were 
there broadcasting live. When I didn't want to talk to them they went 
for Sindri. He sat on a suitcase on a trolley that I was pushing and 
they asked him if it wasn't difficult to have such famous mother and 
travel so much. Then I saw red and started hitting. That's bullshit that 
the reporter I hit did only say "welcome to Bangkok" to Sindri. She 
lied. The day after I rang her to say I'm sorry. She was very nice on 
the phone, but then I saw an interview with her where everything had 
been turned upside down. She is definately not very honest. That kind of 
people can be found in all professions."

 What are you doing now?

"Firstly I am experimenting with glass harmonium, well I don't know what 
to call it. I think Mozart wrote for it first. I play on bowls, wipe on 
them like cognag glasses. I wrote little popsongs for this. Then we have 
rented a movie studio and we're going to film the concert there that I 
have been travelling with for 8 months. The stage is huge, there are 
skyscrapers, trees, plants and all sorts of gimmicks. This is total 
theater. We will film the concert properly and put on video."

 The third album.

"I have started working on my third album. Work with a string quartet 
what I have written on my computer. People in my family don't start to 
bloom until they are old, or over 30 or 40 and they reach the peak at 
70 - 80. I am sure its the same with me. I feel like I have just 
started. These two albums that are out are like exercise for me. 
Therefore I call them Debut and Post. Now I feel like I have started on
my first proper album, the other two are just like scetses."

 Will the next album then be revolutionary for you?

"Yes, Debut and Post were results of what I had been doing the last 15 
years. Therefore the songs are so different. Sometimes I was interested 
in Jazz or just saxophone and so on. With Debut and Post I have gathered 
lots of experience and also I have learnt to be the boss, my own boss, 
in a group of lots of people."

 Bjork says she has 8 new songs. She writes a song and then records it 
 and the record will come out when she has enough songs. The last thing 
 she did was a song for a Brazilian big band, that she hired.

"This is total luxury, a 40-piece band, mostly violins of course. I am 
really over-pampered, I fully realize that. I am really lucky to be in 
this situation, to be able to get an idea and then to fulfill that idea. 
People have lots of dreams but only some can make them come true."

 Hanging out with Stockhausen and Schonberg

Bjork has her fingers in many pies. Recently she interviewed the 
composer Karlheinz Stockhausen for an English music magazine. And now 
she is practising vocals for a piece by another composer from this 
century, Schonberg, that will be performed in the Lille Opera in France 
in the autumn. Bjork says it was a great experience to meet Stockhausen. 
This was her first interview on the other side of the table. A magazine 
that knew she liked Stockhausen asked her to do the interview.

"I have always listen to Arnold Schonberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen and 
Olivier Messiaen. When I was in the Reykjavik Childrens music school I 
was presented to those composers and I have been listening to them 
since, perhaps mostly to Messiaen, especially his organ-pieces. The fact 
is that I have always listened to everything, Chinese jazz, Indian punk 
or monks singing in the Alps. I have always been interested in music 
from this century but I think older music has nothing to do with me. Me 
and Stockhausen went along fine. He was totally open, totally awake, not 
one cell in his body asleep. 68 years old he has childish interest in 
life. And he is very curious."

 Had he listened to your music?

"Yes something, but I didn't talk to him about that. I was deeply 
honoured to meet him and ask him all those questions, that I have always 
longed to ask him. For me in musical context it was meeting God and get 
the change to ask him why the sky is blue and why we have two arms. When 
I went away I thought that this is how I want to be when I am old. 
Something like this has never happend to me before."

 How come you're singing a piece by Arnold Schoenberg?

"I would never have gotten that idea myself, because my heart belongs to 
pop music. But it's a great opportunity. A conductor called Kemp Nagano 
asked me to sing in this piece. I look at this as a good opportunity to 
practice my voice as this is totally different from what I usually do. 
This is not opera-singing but half-sunged and half-spoken vocalizing. 
Schonberg invinted this style. I would never have thought I could sing 
this but the conductor is sure of it and sends a man three times a week 
to train me. I have been doing this for few weeks and this really helps 
me in what I do usually. I will be exactly the same singer but this is a 
fine-fine-fine tuning of my voice."