http://www.vh1.com/artists/emerging/bjork/interview.jhtml VH1.com 2001 By Steffie Nelson "Björk: Home is where the art is" There's no place like home, but if you're an international pop star you've got to find it in the details. Settled in a royal blue chair that could have been custom matched to her smock-like dress and peacock eye makeup, Björk ponders what she calls the "curious mantra" of daily life, and shares a few key ingredients for her home brew: "You open your laptop, you get your emails, you get friends around and cook them a meal. And especially if you make music in the room with your friends, that sort of becomes home." While visiting the San Francisco duo Matmos, who will be backing the singer on her upcoming tour, Björk was presented with an ice cube tray percussion piece that was intended to evoke her native Iceland. "I was very impressed," she smiles. "There's not many tundra and glaciers in San Francisco." Conceived as a love affair to the home, Björk's radiant new album Vespertine originally bore the title Domestika, reflecting the artist's cozy state, as well as the fact that most of the songs are home recordings. But after three years of searching for and finally creating what she calls "paradise under the kitchen table," Bjork felt that the title was gratuitous; she wanted to add something that may have been missing. A dictionary sent to her by a friend yielded the word "vespertine," an archaic term for things that come alive at night or in darkness: stars, night-blooming plants, hibernating animals. These benevolent nocturnal spirits are represented throughout the record by the sparkling, childlike sounds of harps, harpsichords, celestes, and music boxes. A pop star and public figure since the age of 11 in Iceland, the 35- year-old musician was accustomed to traveling fast and living fast - "addicted to stimulants," as she puts it. Björk's last full-length album, 1997's Homogenic, echoes this mood, with its urgent vocals, grand instrumentation, and skittish beats. Rumored to have been inspired by her breakup with drum 'n' bass innovator Goldie, Homogenic, with its epic emotions, led to a period of introspection during which Björk started thinking about making music that would reach similar peaks, but which dealt with internal states and smaller sounds. "It became the biggest challenge I could imagine," she says, "and it was very exciting." Begun just when she accepted the offer to score and then star in the controversial, award-winning film Dancer in the Dark, Vespertine was an ideal complement to the role of Selma, which the first-time actress famously immersed herself in. She feels there was an undeniable synergy between the two projects. "I was wanting to deal with a very introverted world, and then getting asked to do music for a blind girl who has her most extreme highs in a song, internally, seemed to go very hand in hand." The process of recording Vespertine was approached informally, during the after-work hours. "It was never official record-making," she says of the process, which more often than not involved a bottle of wine and the company of friends. And what vision of domestic bliss would be complete without romance? Linked of late with the conceptual filmmaker Matthew Barney, Björk is clearly under the influence of the L-word. Vespertine is overflowing with romantic references. The opening track "Hidden Place," which features choirs of space sirens, tells of a new love that has a private side. "I'm not sure what to do with it or where to put it/ I'll keep it in a hidden place." "Pagan Poetry" sweeps and climbs upward on a harp motif as the vocals expand with emotion. The song closes with an a cappella incantation: "I love him, I love him ... she loves him, she loves him." "Cocoon" is an almost shockingly intimate love song. Jolts of static electricity and ripe keyboards create a framework for Björk's breathless rejoicing: "Who would have known that a boy like him would have entered me lightly, restoring my blisses ... In his arms, gorgeousness: he's still inside me!" Are these really the words of someone who is hibernating, home alone? Björk looks down, playing with her fingers. "I guess I'm trying to keep it a secret." She grins. "So I decided to put it on thousands of CDs. It's working really well." It's nice to see a visibly happy woman in place of the tortured artist accused of eating her shirt during an on-set showdown in the filming of Dancer in the Dark. In the same way that being a mother is simply part of who she is (her son Sindri is 15), Björk's art is always in the front of her mind. With this album, though, she let go of a self-imposed restriction against pop perfection: "I was always trying to do pop music that was more truthful, and this was the first time that I actually wanted to escape." Considering how things have turned out, however, she now recommends it. Another byproduct of making music for so many years, she notes, is a developed sensitivity to "the characters of your ideas." Björk says that when she was younger she might "drink five coffees and go 'one two three four waaaaah!'" Now, though, she knows when to be patient and when to be spontaneous. A huge benefit of recording in home studios is that you work when you feel like it. That way, she says, "ideas can stay how they were born." One also has the space to conclude that an idea has reached its peak, and now it's time to create. Björk likens the process of making Vespertine to making a mosaic. Following the huge instrumentation of Homogenic and accompanying the found-sound bombast of Selmasongs, it seemed logical to put her ear to the ground and listen to the sounds of silence. Collaborating with programmers and her friends Matmos, she recorded everything from fingers being snapped to a rhythmically shuffled deck of cards. Once these sound libraries existed, songs could be built on the spot. "A lot of my work is about craftsmanship," she explains. "Spending so much time in studios it's like solving little riddles that aren't necessarily autobiographical or emotional." This was the first time Björk relied on a computer as her main recording tool. There has always been an easy ebb and flow between technology and nature in her music and visual expression, but she says it wasn't until she was interested in sealing herself in that hermetic world that she could make it alive. Superior craftsmanship notwithstanding, Björk's most important realm remains that of the emotions. Concerned with personal politics, she strives for bravery and generosity, believing that such stances can affect the whole world. She infused the tragic character of Selma with healing and dignity; Vespertine offers hope and encouragement. On "It's Not Up to You," the track most reminiscent of Selmasongs, she takes a Buddhist perspective, and offers counsel: "If you wake up and your day feels broken, just lean into the crack ... notice how it sparkles down there." Though she is adamant that the music she makes is not political, this former punk and daughter of a union organizer does believe that troubled nations are "exactly where you should play your music ... It reminds people that everyone's core is similar." She gives a shy smile. "At the end of the day I guess I'm sort of a naive person who wants everybody to be friends."