Rolling Stone 1995-07 By Jane Cornwell Photographs by Jean Baptiste Mondino "Space Cadet" Bjork stuffs a whole poached egg into her mouth and apologises for being hangover. "It makes me talk too much," she says, leaning over the Dictaphone. "Blah blah blah." Sobriety is anathema to the 29-year-old chanteuse: some of her best collaborative ideas were borne from a night on the piss, a legacy of her Icelandic punk days when drink fuelled the lyrical inspiration of bands such as the all-girl Spit and Snot, the radical, anti-establishment Kukl and indie legends the Sugarcubes. These days, however, inebriation is confined to once a month. Which is just enough, she reckons, to stop her shoulders feeling full of rocks. And the morning after the night before (a bender at London's Jungle club Speed) seems an appropriate time to discuss her latest release: the weird and wonderful Post. Random thoughts, free associations and abstract tangents make up The World According to Bjork. The answer to a question may be a long time coming, if at all. How the hell did we get on to this? one wonders, as the elfin singer segues from notions of progress ("Plastic was invented in 1503 when they were trying to make cheese") to evolution ("If the human species dies another one will simply take over") to potato salad ("What's the point? It just fills up your stomach for no apparent reason"). All delivered in a voice full of rolled rrrs, a hybrid of Eastern European and Cockney. When Bjork states that she never gets nervous before going onstage, unless she's hoarse, "Then it's the same sort of thing as a man about to act in a porno film, wondering if he will get a harrrd-on or not." The self-confessed workaholic maintains that she was born with a surfeit of energy, a little of which she has to siphon off by bicycling or working out at the gym. "And things like sex helps," she says, grinning mysteriously. So today, having just got out of bed, she fidgets. Her fingers wander constantly into the corners of her eyes, up her nostrils, pick imagined pimples on her arms and tug at a pink bra strap. Whether it be joie de vivre or just getting her tongue around difficult English vowels, her habit of spraying your face with a fine layer of spittle as she waxes enthusiastic is more endearing than disconcerting. A bit like the wind blowing gently over the North Atlantic. Salient points are accompanied by a clockwise licking of the lips and simultaneous rolling of the eyes, a gesture which, together with the delicate gesticulations of tiny hands and their baby-sized fingernails, reinforce her media representation as a visiting extra-terrestrial. Greetings, Earthlings. Except that this one wears black combat pants, neon Nikes and a Ren and Stimpy T-shirt. The trademark topknots (which made her a perfect Princess Leia for the '90s) are long gone. Her face, sans make-up, boasts flawless skin, eyebrows that meet in the middle and an unfaltering green-eyed gaze. On her upper left arm sits the tattoo of a Viking compass. "It's so I don't get lost," she says coquettishly. "If the Vikings had bad weather or fog, they used to draw it on their foreheads with a piece of coal. I thought that was a bit much, so I put it there." Her forearm is covered with scrawled biro -- song lyrics? a shopping list? phone number of the new (undisclosed) boyfriend? -- and is difficult to decipher upside down. Even more so when one realizes, naturally, that it's in Icelandic. Born to a Bohemian musical family and brought up on a hippie commune, Bjork (pronounced Byerk) Gudmundsdottir (literally Gudmund's daughter) made her first eponymous solo album -- a mixture of cover versions and standard Icelandic pop tunes -- in 1977 at age 11. She became vaguely famous. At 13, she dyed her hair orange, joined punksters Exodus, and became vaguely infamous. The late arrival of punk and new wave in Iceland during her teenage years saw her experimenting with a plethora of short-lived bands in Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, but it was the mischievous pop of the Sugarcubes that brought international notoriety and an A&R stampede. Three critically appraised albums in five years (Life's Too Good, Stick Around For Joy and Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week) were all well and good, but in 1992 a bored Bjork left the band to go solo. It was one mighty Debut: produced by Soul II Soul's Nellee Hooper -- who co-produced half of Post -- the album sold 2.5 million copies and spawned a string of hitsingles: "Human Behaviour", "Big Time Sensuality", "Venus As A Boy" and "Violently Happy". It smacked the pop world in the face with all the force of a burst geyser. Bjork's voice provided welcome respite from club land's repetitive beats and the stadium's monotonous guitar solos. It growled, hiccuped, crooned and shrieked, displaying all the vocal gymnastics of an astral banshee. And the arrangements weren't bad either. Debut won Bjork a brace of awards, world-wide acclaim, a following of pre-pubescent Bjork-a-likes (turning up at her concerts with the same multi-bobbled hair-dos) and immortality as a puppet on the satirical British TV show Spitting Image. Strangely, it's the latter which she sees as indicative of her acceptance in England, where she set up permanent base in 1993. "I was very honoured," she states, "I'd spent 27 years in Iceland and everybody completely misunderstood me. I was the enfant terrible who had to be put in her place. But the fact I could live in London for just one year and they know that all I want to do is sing a long with fax machines and car alarms is perfect! That's exactly what I'm on about!" Britain, with its tolerance of eccentricity, has provided the quirky songstress with a spiritual home. Later, a passing police siren causes Bjork's voice to rise, yodelling, to make herself heard. It's obviously something primal. Bjork loves being in control. Just. She feels that, with Debut, she didn't take enough risks. "I was afraid of it not being perfect," she admits, "Which is much the same for a first film or first book. I'm my own hardest judge. So I had to sit down and say to myself, 'Listen Bjork, relax. It will be a lesson for later." So I was really surprised how much people loved it, because I knew I could do so much better." She's pleased with Post, and seemingly unfazed by the high expectations for her follow up. Recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas (where Belly mixed their recent King), it gave Bjork the opportunity to indulge her passion for singing outside. "That's the way I grew up. Iceland has probably got the same proportions as Australia, about this much inhabited," she states, squeezing forefinger and thumb together. "So you can always sing at the top of your voice and nobody can hear you." The Bahamas, she adds, are also a tax-free zone. The idea of an ice-maiden in the tropics might appear incongruous, but eccentric opposites are Bjork's raison d'etre. She loves new technologies and nature in equal measure. Chocolate cake and vindaloo, Debussy and jungle, discipline and freedom ("The little tension, that's the turn on"), fantasy and reality ("If I want to think about having sex with 87 peacocks I can and it's not a crime, but in reality they mightn't be up for it, you know?"). All in equal measures. It's the stuff in the middle she eschews. Like potato salad. Post is full of seemingly disparate instruments: bagpipes, dulcimers and strings sit alongside futuristic bleeps, DAT mixes and pulsating techno to create harmony out of discord. It's post-modernism at its most indulgent and creative best. "You're right," she concedes, "I'm obsessed with extremes. I hate the fact that I'm meant to be this very gentle feminine creature who therefore can't be rude or like punk music." Even the lyrics are paradoxical: on the sure-fire club hit "I Miss You" (co-written and produced by Mo Wax DJ Howie Bernstein) she sings, "but I haven't met you yet"; and, on the self-penned "Possibly Maybe", "probably not." The industrial funk metal explosions of "Army of Me" are complimented by her haunting vocals ("If you complain once more/You'll meet an army of me"); on "Enjoy" -- co-produced and written with Bristol-based wunderkind Tricky and bearing his unmistakable handiwork- Bjork breathlessly intones "This is sex without touching." And wham bang in the middle of Post is "Blow A Fuse (It's Oh So Quiet)", a cover of a recording by wartime Hollywood star Betty Hutton, for which Bjork enlisted the help of a 20-piece orchestra to "keep it like it was". "Ssh, ssh, it's so peaceful? she whispers, sotto voce, before giving full voice to the bellowing refrain "UNTIL YOU FALL IN LOVE". Those extremes again. Nellee Hooper initially refused to have anything to do with the project. Bjork knew exactly what she wanted, he said, and should do it herself. "So I left his house really pissed off, thinking 'You don't love me any more' and things like this. So I did half the songs, came back and we got drunk till ten in the morning and I wouldn't go home till he promised we'd do it together. He said he'd be my safety net." This provided inspiration for the lyrics to "Cover Me" ("When I crawl into the unknown/ Cover me"). "Like Starsky and Hutch," she says, her two hands miming a pistol. She sees Debut and Post like twins, the first and second born, and now feels free to move on to other things. "Both are a week in the life of an everyday person, and all the emotional roller coaster rides that go with that. A celebration of the unpredictability of life. You can't, and aren't supposed to, control it. You just have to sit back and make the best of things." The diversity of the songs, therefore, exemplify mood swings. Bjork stabs the air with her finger to emphasise the point. "The minute you think you've got it all worked out, life is just going to take you and shake you and say listen! Stop being so arrogant! You don't know, so stop pretending that you do." If Bjork had to have a philosophy, it would be about individuality. Bjork-a-likes beware -- even if she sprouts a quiff, don't go getting one too. It's gone beyond flattery and it pisses her off. "I'm sorry, but people copying me just aren't getting what I'm on about. I want surprises. I don't get a kick out of being surrounded by people who dress and talk the way I like. It's the same with musicians." This time around, she deliberately bypassed a rigid band structure in favour of working with a whole variety of artists. "I can't just sing and sing and not get anything back," she states. "So this time they could just be whoever they are and it was more nutritious for me." Just yesterday she asked a Japanese accordionist to come on board. He's thinking about it. Bjork's big on nutrition. Metaphorically. When she says that headphones saved her life, she thumps her inner elbow by way of explanation. "Like a junkie, you know? I'm not saying music's better than people, but there are certain things that only music can caress. I wrote the song 'Headphones' for Graham Massey [ex 808 State, a long standing pal and co-writer of "Modern Things" and "Army of Me"] because he makes me tapes and sends them to me in the post. When I have a bad day, I keep them in my pocket and play them on my Walkman when I get into bed at night. It sorts me out. Falling asleep to music is ever so precious, it's almost like you are listening to it, um, not underwater but..." The green eyes roll clockwise, searching for the word. Subliminally? "Mmm, yes, that's it." So if music is Bjork's soulfood, her clothes are the cutlery. She might have bounced down the catwalk for Gaultier, but her onstage gear -- an eclectic montage of starched astral ballgowns and bovver boots, the sort of thing one might wear to a 2001 New Years Eve bash -- is merely a conduit for the music. "They're just a tool. I try to wear a garment that will assist me in looking like my songs. Hopefully I succeed in helping people sympathise with their emotions, and if my dress helps people understand what I'm on about, then that's good. I'm like a nurse in that sense." Nurse Bjork? Astro Bjork suits her better. The sleeve artwork for "Army of Me" (on the soundtrack to Tank Girl) features our heroine as precisely this, borrowing from the Japanese cartoon character Astro Boy, who merely had to point his finger in the air to summon up a halo-like weapon to put things right. Astro Bjork lives in, naturally enough, Astro Bjork City. A case of art imitating life, perhaps. Given all this futurism, it's logical that Bjork has created her own little niche on the 'Net. Not that she spends much time on-line- "I leave that to my son [nine-year-old Sindri]. He's the boffin of the family. But I watch him do it? But the uncontrollability of it all appeals to her: "Being the old punk that I am and brought up by hippies, I'm definitely a fuck the system sort of character. I like the fact it is about people." "I know I could write a song on my computer and make up the instruments. For example, a guitar with 92 strings and a green fluffy hairy drum. Computers are good for fantasy. Then I could put it on the Internet and send it to the whole world, which would mean a record would cost a pound or something. No record companies. Just me and the person listening. That completely fascinates me." At the moment, however, record company moguls are desperately trying to prevent this from happening. "They're trying to convince everybody they're not disposable, when they are!" she says. "Technology should be about free expression. It's brrrilliant, and doesn't mean we're going to destroy the planet." Citing David Attenborough as a childhood hero, Bjork's views on the state of the global environment are almost child-like in their simplicity. Fuck up and the earth will chuck us right off. "In Iceland there's earthquakes and volcanoes. When people from Europe say we're killing nature, we say how can you be so arrogant? If we go one step wrong, nature will just shake its shoulders and deal with us." Geographically, she reckons, Australia is where it's at. "It's so old, like an elephant, with dust and cobwebs all over" Her memories of the Big Day Out pale in comparison with her visit to Hanging Rock in Victoria, suffice to say that "It was 12 hours of guitar solos. We were the only pink dot among all the green ones." She can't remember any Australian bands ("Although you'd have to be a walking corpse not to have heard of Nick Cave"), but pleads feeling put on the spot. The hangover might be kicking in, but she's still violently happy. Any reason in particular? Bjork giggles, curls up into a little ball and scrunches up her elfin features. "I'm in love, man. I'm on E!" All she'll add is that it's new, he's a musician, and yes, it's an intimate working relationship. And that she should learn to talk less. "I've said too much already."