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Still Solving Riddles
For The Economist online, I talked with Björk. It was a blast! And I also learned a lot about science and songwriting.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir laughs, a lot. It’s the only time while talking she doesn’t sound like “Björk”, the pop star Alex Ross once called “the most famous Icelander since Leif Erickson.” Otherwise, Björk the interviewee trills in the same register as Björk the singer, with a Nordic inflection that lilts as it rolls. Hers is a voice made for tall tales and torch songs. The laugh keeps things grounded.
Today, Björk is speaking and giggling from her home on the Icelandic coast, having been connected to me by telephone through a London PR office. She’s overlooking the Atlantic as she fields my questions. It’s the last day of summer. Our shared task is to discuss her new project, “Biophilia”. But because we both seem unsure how to approach this dense cluster of ideas we instead begin by talking about a dizzying assortment of other things, none of which likely to sell copies of the new album.
Read the entire story here.
