Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2009, Page 44

all screaming physical revolt, then you
had Vespertine with its frail undertones
of courtship and introspection...
Well, Vespertine was... I made it around the
time I bought my first laptop. It was very
exciting. Everyone was so depressed, talking
about ‘THE END OF MUSIC’ and ‘music
is doomed, what with all the downloading’
and I was just... ‘No, it’s not. You just
need some imagination.’ It was partly
inspired by that. There was a collection of
instruments on the record that all sound
very good when they’re downloaded – like
the harp, glockenspiel and celesta – and all
the voices were whispered instead of sung at
full blast.
The soundscape was kind of virtual,
more thought than physical. More mental
and frozen. I decided: ‘OK, this world is
not warm summer, it is a frozen winter. It’s
cold, you turn off your body.’ In Vespertine,
I made a record that you experience in a
frozen state, from the cover artwork to
the soundscape and all lyrics being about
being in a pupal stage on a winter’s night.
Hibernating. I was playing with that idea.
It’s funny to think that in the year 2000,
when I was making that record, people were
acting very scared about the purported ‘end
of music’. It’s always that same cliché. I
liked turning it upside down.
And now of course, almost ten years
later, there’s a whole lot of music out there
being made that’s directly inf luenced by
what downloads well. Music being made
by people that have been for the last decade
listening to mp3 files at their house, and
now they’re making music out of them.
There’s no real focus now on listening to
Dolby Stereo at your house. The bitrate can
be shitty for that matter, there’s no right
way to listen to music. Anyway, I thought
that work with Vespertine was equally
exciting and challenging. And then Volta
was a very different affair...
Up on the hill with a flag and a horn
So what are you thinking or
contemplating right now that might be
reflected on Volta’s follow-up?
My friend Gabríela [Friðriksdóttir, artist]
is big on numerology. In the time leading
up to Volta, she’d calculated that I was
an eight, which means justice. I thought
that was funny, especially since my dad is
always working in the union movement
and my mom has that gene in her... she
went on hunger strike for eighteen days to
try and stop the Kárahnjúkar dam from
happening. So I thought it would be funny
and humorous – although maybe no one
but me gets the joke – to do a justice album,
an EIGHT; up on the hill with a f lag and
a horn.
For the next record, if I can promise
you anything about that, it’s that it will not
be a justice record. It’s fun to run up the
hill with a big f lag, demanding justice, but
it can be a tiring feeling in the long run.
Trying to think you can tell others what’s
right and what they need to do. It was fun
for two years but now I am done with that.
I liked it, though, the raw energy with the
brass girls and the hooliganism. But now I
have something different. I will say that I
am excited about all the new programs and
instruments we’ve been talking about.
ON ThE NáTTúRA ORGANiSATiON...
Perhaps in line with Volta’s theme of
justice, you have lately been very involved
in grassroots organisations, promoting
environmentalism and sustainability
with the Náttúra group. The song you
released in support of the project last fall
(‘Náttúra’) was a big success, too. How is
the Náttúra project going?
Yes, well, at the moment we’re dedicated
to running the website [www.nattura.info]
and are in the process of deciding what our
next move will be. We were kind of stunted
during this spring’s election and that whole
recession and economic collapse thing,
that’s no secret, but we are working on a lot
of ideas. There are currently many groups
in Iceland – not just us, but all sorts of
people to the left, right, green and not green
– that are interested in creating what can
be called a national assembly. We are also
really keen on that idea.
They do this in a lot of nations that are
going through trouble. We would need a
certain proportion of the 300.000 persons
that make up Iceland, around 1.500
people, and we would meet with the aim
of mapping out what we want Iceland to
be in 20 years. We’ll get a wide assembly;
Jón and Gunna from Bíldudalur, folks
that wish to harness everything and build
dams everywhere, and people that wish to
harness nothing. Groups that want Iceland
to become the biggest electric car country in
the world, and people that want us to hunt
more whales. The whole of us, planning out
a course. We cannot be everything, and we
cannot be nothing – there needs to be some
sort of commitment. And as I said, we [the
Náttúra group] might very well cooperate
with another ten groups in calling together
a nationwide meeting. These are some very
different groups, many of whom totally
disagree with us on most things. But I
think that it’s the first step to a national
assembly, that these groups work together.
Are you aiming to do this in 2009?
Yes, but I don’t know if we can do it. It’s a
dream, participating in that. A dream we
foster. This is in any case a good idea, and it
came from the people themselves, not from
an elite or politicians. People have lost a lot
of faith in politicians. But I don’t know if
I should be talking about this, I’m not at
all sure it’s going to happen. It would take
months to plan and put together.
ON WhAT ShE’S LiSTENiNG TO...
What are your current listening habits,
what sort of music are you digging at the
moment?
I think it’s been an unusually fine year
for pop music. The year is only halfway
through and already I’ve found a lot of new
releases that I genuinely like and will listen
to at home. It’s a good year for pop music.
Like Antony’s new record [Antony and
the Johnsons’ The Crying Light], Animal
Collective [Merriweather Post Pavilion],
The Dirty Projectors [Bitte Orca]... I’m
forgetting something. On the whole, I feel
this is a really exciting year for music.
There were a few years in between that
I felt nothing exciting was going on. At
least not to my tastes. But now, observing
the new generation of Americans – the
aforementioned, along with people like
Joanna Newsom, Americans between 20
and 30 – I feel more excited. I feel I have
more in common with that generation of
Americans than with a lot of what’s been
making the rounds these past years.
So I am excited for the next generation.
Maybe Bush saved the day by staying in
power for eight years, so everyone got fed up
with careerism and marketing and making
money. It was always said that Europeans
make pop music and they just try to make
great music, not caring if it makes it to
number one or not, but in the US people
are always thinking about success. And I
feel like that’s totally over now. Like Animal
Collective and that whole generation, it’s
like they´re on the whole other side of that
coin. I’ve been living in New York and it’s
been an exciting time, the extreme f lipside
of materialism. The new generation isn’t
even thinking of profit, it’s like, ‘forget it,
I won’t even go there!’ And that’s fun to
witness. The line now is that people are
supposed to be creative and prolific, in line
with nature. Making money or possessing
money it is no longer the one two three of it
all. So I like that, that’s my department.
32
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2009
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WWW.CINTAMANI.IS
ICelANdIC
OuTdOOr
equIpMeNT
& SupplIeS
IN The CITy
CeNTer
Who Was
There?
The Volta touring ensemble had a
lot of people in it. Babysitters. Chefs.
Organisers. Roadies. Engineers.
Soundpeople. And musicians, too.
The crew that performed at the tour
included Mark Bell on computers and
keyboards, Damian Taylor on keyboards
and programming, Chris Corsano on
drums and percussion, Jónas Sen on
piano, harpsichord and church’s organ
and the all female, all Icelandic ten
piece brass section Wonderbrass on the
horns. And Björk, of course.
CONTiNUEd FROM PAGE 6
Where Did They
Go, Now
The Volta tour was the most extensive
one Björk has embarked upon in her
solo career. The following is a list of
the countries the Volta touring outfit
visited in 2007 and 2008. It is divided by
continent. It has a lot of countries in it.
NORTh AMERiCA
California
New York
Illinois
Colorado
British Columbia
Washington
Ontario
Michigan
Texas
Georgia
Quebec
Nevada
SOUTh AMERiCA
Brazil
Argentina
Chile
Peru
Colombia
Mexico
EUROPE
The United Kingdom
Belgium
Poland
Denmark
Holland
Spain
Italy
Switzerland
France
Ireland
Scotland
Iceland
Lithuania
Latvia
Germany
Greece
Turkey
Portugal
OCEANiA
New Zealand
Australia
ASiA
Indonesia
Korea
Japan
China
hAUkUR S MAGNúSSON