Singer-songwriter-composer, producer Björk is the next artist to take the stage for Apple Music Live – the live performance series that gives the biggest stars in music a platform to connect with audiences around the world.
In this Apple Music Live show, the Icelandic avant-garde musician, known for her boundary-pushing sound and theatrical performances, will perform Cornucopia, one of a kind digitally animated show with moving curtains, a modern lanterna magica for live music, where 21st-century VR visuals are brought into a 19th-century theatre. The concert was recorded in Lisbon. The Apple Music Live: Björk (Cornucopia) setlist was arranged to celebrate Björk’s lifetime of creative innovation – taking fans on a journey through her vivid early-career compositions like “Isobel” and “Hidden Place” up to her ambitious 2017 Utopia and 2023 Fossora . The show’s live-recorded songs will be available after the livestream in Spatial Audio, exclusively on Apple Music.
In an extensive career-spanning conversation airing tomorrow (23rd Jan) on Apple Music 1, Björk sits down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe for her first on-camera interview in a decade – giving fans a rare glimpse into her creative process and the iconic woman behind the music. She tells Lowe about her new climate-focused film “Cornucopia,” how she creates her music using technology, working with esteemed biologist Sir David Attenborough, and more.
Björk: The Zane Lowe Interview will air tomorrow, Thursday, January 23 at 6pm on Apple Music 1. The exclusive Apple Music Live: Björk (Cornucopia) performance will debut Friday, January 24 at 3pm on Apple Music.
Björk tells Apple Music about avatars represented in the “Cornucopia” film
It ended up being a selection of the avatars that I'd done with different directors, all the way from the Notget avatar to the Family avatar of Vulnicura, to the avatars of The Gate and of Utopia, and then Losss and Tabula Rasa, and then all the way till now with Nick Knight. So basically, there is a sub story in the film of avatars who are like marionettes or dolls who represent me at different stages, and it was quite... Because some of it was in VR, some of it was in music videos, some of it was in all different places, and to get it all in 90 minutes, to have them all appear and it's all by different people and all with different color palettes and emotional, hopefully, expression that, for me, it was quite moving to see the more back-to-back, the avatars go through the film.
Björk explains to Apple Music about the writing process for her music
I always write one song a month, one every two months. It doesn't matter what happens in my life, it's like the full moon or it's just like a rhythm because I've been doing it so long. So I think the minute when I release an album, part of me is so relieved and so bored with the subject matter that I'm super excited to do something complete opposite. So I start gathering info or research or whatever tech is going on as well. But then just to contradict what I just said… I also really get bored very easily, so I never want to do it twice the same. So sometimes, I will first write all the songs, like I did Vulnicura just with string arrangement songs, and then I do the next stage. Or sometimes I will start the complete other... Like with Utopia, maybe on flute arrangements, doing flute arrangements for a year and rehearsing with flute players in my cabin every Friday, and with us driving there and gelling together as a group and just becoming really good friends, and that becomes the heart of an album. And then afterwards, I will stick other stuff on top. So I think, yeah, so it's a mix of what's going on. So bringing you the third angle just to contradict the other two, I try also not be directed by technology. I want the craft to be... The soul comes first and the craft is to assist the soul to express yourself.
Björk tells Apple Music about using technology to express herself
Zane Lowe: I felt that you and maybe a very small selection of your peers in an important time found a way to allow technology to find its voice in a different way. I felt like we were trying to use technology to enhance our voice, and I always wanted to ask you if this resonates with you. You were searching for the voice in the technology to see what it had to say.
Björk: Yeah. I think the way I look at it is we are all such submarines and we have so many things we can express, but also a lot of things that all of us just can't express. It's unexpressable. Some of it, thank God, we can express through music, not necessarily even if we are musicians or not, just by dancing or listening to music at home or whatever. But then I've always looked at technology as this kind of a magic key that it can reach the spots that the other two can't. When at first the touch screen came, it was like, "Oh my God, I can map out musicology." I wish I had a 3-D screen when I was in music school and I could see how counterpoint works in physics. It's a gravity-driven thing, not like something you read in this thick book. So I think sometimes, technology, obviously we made technology and sometimes it catches up with us and allows us to mark something that actually is very... It's like drinking water, it makes it easier. Like I've said, many times, I was so happy when the laptop came and then finally when you could record on mountaintops while I'm hiking or you could bring your phone with you. I'm like, "Wow. Finally, technology, I can go to nature, and my studio is in nature, not in some stuffed studio with foam and no windows in the middle of a city." So I think technology, we are slowly getting more closer to the ideal way how we want to express ourselves.
Björk reflects with Apple Music on working with Sir David Attenborough
Zane Lowe: What’s one really memorable thing that you took from or you learned from getting to know Sir David Attenborough, and spending time with him?
Björk: I remember we once had to film, and we were in the basement of the Natural History Museum. And something broke, some equipment, and we had to sit there for hours for it getting fixed. And he just sat there, and obviously double my age. And I was basically drained, and I was so exhausted, just got more and more exhausted as we had to wait. And just looked at him and I was like, "Fucking hell." Basically, I could just imagine him in Papua New Guinea do the same thing, because I bet the equipment were always breaking. You had wait for seven hours for a Bird of Paradise or whatever. He basically just shut off, and he was closed eyes, and then it was action. And then he just came out with the most beautiful paragraph, fully formed sentence, no script that I've ever heard. I was like, "What the fuck?” It was just a superpower of the orator.
Björk tells Apple Music about the concept for “Cornucopia”
I think that's one of the beauties of getting older, is that you become more like the ceiling of a cathedral. There's a thousand pieces, and it takes two years to make. So you're trying to get the whole, so it's a very feminine, cohesive energy that you are making sure all the pieces are there. So I think with this Cornucopia piece, because I was part of everything. I was there when I was mixed, I was there when it was mastered, I was there when it was edited. I was in every single process of this. So what I'm really trying to think is holistic. And then there is the other side of me, which is more about get that guttural, emotional take. Keep it real.
I think maybe Cornucopia... It's also in the name isn't it, Cornucopia? The idea of plenty, and it is plenty, and it's an answer to the environmental problems we are in, to the patriarchy. It's a reply to a lot of problems. And the reply is, don't stop there. We have plenty. We have solutions. We can start all over again. We can't go to an island with flutes and children, and we will maybe lose a lot of our species. Biology is strong enough to mutate, and create new creatures that will survive. And it's an optimistic thing, and biology can handle it. So it's a strange, farce-like comedy statement on all the post-apocalyptic stuff that is out there. It's a post-optimistic thing, Cornucopia. And so I fought for it. That's where my heart was, in defending that. We did have the wound, it was shining. We did have the reveal of the rawness. But there was the healing, there was the other options. We have a choice. We can still create a new Paris Climate Accord and follow it this time around.
Björk talks to Apple Music about environmental activism and her inspiration for the climate-focused concert film
It is like, "Okay, the damage is done. How do you live inside it?" So, it is more like, oh, oh, oh ... Timothy Martin philosophy is like the apocalypse has already happened, so how are we going to survive in it? So, it is more from that protecting biodiversity, more stuff like that than maybe the Gen X-ers were standing and punk, like screaming, pointing fingers at people who own factories. If I scream louder, they will stop. That's not going to work anymore. It's more about trying to bring solutions and trying to help. Everybody wants to help. We are all guilt-ridden. We are all... 7 billion of people paralysed with guilt of what we did to the planet. We don't have to even discuss that one. So, we can't add to that guilt factor. I think it's more about helping to go to court, how can I click, how can I write new laws that can change the system from inside? The Gen X-ers are saying ... or rich people and saying, "Listen, you're ruining my nature." So, those cases, weirdly enough, they're winning. So, I think we have to think about it more from that point of view now. It's a tilt. It's a tilt, and I tried to be humble and listen to them.
