For Björk, There Is No Map: How Björk Guðmundsdóttir’s Journey Brought Iceland To The World

Local critical institution Arnar Eggert gives his impressions of a career without precedent or parallel

Sitting calmly in a nondescript room on the upper floor of downtown Reykjavík’s legendary Iðnó venue, Björk describes herself as a gentle gardener. It’s autumn 2011, and I am talking to her about Biophilia, her latest project, which proved to be nothing less than mind-blowing. “My last project, Volta, was very ‘aggro’ — standing on a chair and complaining, pointing fingers and generally being critical. When I sat down to write Biophilia I thought: ‘Well, you’ve been pointing a lot. How about some solutions?’ There’s a karma to it. On Volta it was ‘All in line! Be fierce!’ but now it’s more like the gentle gardener who tries to sow seeds here and there, working in different areas that are at the same time connected. A network of sorts. That’s the character of this project, and I’ve been made to surrender to it — the project went in the direction it had to go.’”

The larger-than-life Biophilia project, laid out by its author, is but one grand example from Björk’s varied career as a musician/artist, a career that’s nearing its 50th anniversary. It feels like I could have dropped in at any time in her career and written this article around any one aspect of it. All of it is just so… miraculous. Her MTV Unplugged performance. Don’t get me started. The video for “All is Full of Love”? Wow! Or maybe just the bassline from “Army of Me”, the greatest opening track on any album, ever.

“We knew that Björk was special, talented, but no one was expecting this high a flight, a flight that seems never ending.”

We knew that Björk was special, talented, but no one was expecting this high a flight, a flight that seems never ending. The 1990s made her the star she is today, when she released magnificent albums in a relatively quick succession (Debut, 1993; Post, 1995; Homogenic, 1997), and they were/are so good that you really can’t choose between them. (I’ll say this though, Debut is my favourite and her best song is the gut-wrenching “Hyper-Ballad”. Pure beauty. It just stings.) And then she opened the millennium with Vespertine (2001), a brilliant album that seems to deepen with every year.

But how did we get here? The Sugarcubes, her former band, had split in December 1992, and Björk launched her solo career six months later. Her success was far from happenstance; the field had been furrowed for a long time, and there was a plan in place. But world domination, as the Smekkleysa/Bad Taste members had often proclaimed with tongues firmly in cheek, was not necessarily the aim. The group actually did have the slogan “World Domination or Death.” A cynical, off-the-cuff, mantra magnificently turned into truth in the hands of Björk.

Her success had radical consequences for the Icelandic pop/rock scene, pushing Iceland into the international limelight and contributing in no small part to its overall visibility, playing a role in the tourist boom that the country is enjoying (or enduring). Björk is now the most famous Icelander who has ever lived, usually the first thing people mention when Iceland comes up in a discussion.

Debut’s first single, “Human Behaviour”, stating that there’s “no map” when it comes to the unpredictability of said behaviour, entered the UK Top 40, accompanied by a quirky video made by in-vogue director Michel Gondry. Björk would then go from strength to strength, solidifying her unique vision with every release while a legion of fans, bordering on the cult-like, was formed. Timing also played a significant role in Björk’s immense popularity; after Nirvana upended the mainstream in 1991, major labels were flooded with avant-garde-leaning artists, and the heavy airplay of Beck’s solidly weird “Loser” in 1994 seemed to crystallise this state of affairs. Björk’s world slotted in perfectly.

“Björk is the big collaborator. She works with people, draws them in, has her ear firmly to the ground.”

Spreading her wings

The 2000s were no less adventurous than this “opening” decade. The 2000s was the decade where Björk spread her wings fully. A year before the release of Vespertine, the film Dancer In The Dark premiered, with Björk playing the lead.

Her standing as a “total artist” became very clear in this decade, the breadth of her oeuvre nothing less than astounding. The follow-up to Vespertine is nice proof of this, an experimental vocal album (Medúlla, 2004) where absolutely no fucks are given. Deal with it! She then partook in “outer limit” art performances with then-partner Matthew Barney, resulting in the soundtrack The Music from Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9.

She stepped out as a fierce environmental activist in this decade and toured the world with a Greenlandic all-girl choir and an Icelandic girl brass band, Wonderbrass (and recently, an all-woman flute ensemble, viibra). These female-empowerment moves were never particularly emphasised, which makes them somehow more effective and admirable. Björk’s straight shooting and fearlessness was also pinpointed on the powerful track “Declare Independence”. Here, the gloves are off. Ruthless colonisers, in this particular case Denmark, and the appalling treatment of its colonies The Faroe Islands and Greenland, get it straight to the face with these call-to-arms lines: “Declare independence / Don’t let them do that to you”.

Björk is the great collaborator. She works with people, draws them in, has her ear firmly to the ground. She builds worlds and makes herself at home in the most unlikely ones – and always a natural fit. And I have to mention just one thing, or two rather, in this respect, undertakings which I find awesome and bordering on the ridiculous. I’m talking about her connections to extreme metal and heavy rock from both sides of the pond, in this case the mighty Liverpool grindcore legends Carcass and New York avant-metallers Helmet. I quite regularly think I’m dreaming this up, but then I manage to source the music (and immediately remember that Björk sometimes put Polish death metal band Decapitated into her DJ sets). Helmet’s cover of “Army of Me” (what else!) was released in 1996 on the Music for Our Mother Ocean compilation album. In 1995, Carcass remixed “Isobel”, and there were more heavy rock collaborations around this time for some reason (a television appearance with Skunk Anansie, for instance). The mighty punkstress sailed through all of this – with ease of course, and you can’t help but admire her wide range here. To accentuate that, her cover of Betty Hutton’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” became her highest-charting song around the same time, a UK holiday staple ever since. From grinding pummelings to fairy-dust joy and quirks.

A very human behaviour

I’ve heard complaints lately that her music is too out there, too complex, too difficult, and, in a way, I understand. It’s funny how pop music, which should be all about the new, is at the same time one of the most nostalgia-infused things we have. Can I please just dance to a groovy Björk-ian dance number like it was 1995 all over again? Yes, you can actually, just look up the old albums. But Björk, of course, is not about that, and rarely — if ever — has an artist been so laser-focused on advancing her creativity, nurturing her artistic core and forever looking ahead. And all of us reap the benefits.

I’ve talked about fearlessness, clarity, and ambition, but what happens when Björk becomes totally human? Vulnerable, angry, out of control, sad. Vulnicura (2015) is a once-in-a-lifetime work, an album so raw and so bleak that it’s nigh on impossible to listen to. Here, Björk unflinchingly details her split with partner Matthew Barney, with crushing results. In a review, I pondered: “Listening to Björk’s attempts to understand what is happening around her shakes me to the core. In this brutally powerful work Björk manages to describe the pain that so many of us have experienced with remarkable sensitivity. Her descriptions, so true and heartfelt, leave the listener absolutely disarmed. The courage embedded in this – and it’s clearly something she had to do, there are no calculations here – gives way to a rare grace. Here we have an artist that‘s absolutely true to her calling, who uses her gift to claw her way out of a trauma. Björk goes though this volatile healing process with open eyes and ears, engaging with both the ugly things and the beautiful things. A remarkable achievement.“

On Utopia (2017) Björk stepped into the light again. She‘s drawing breath, taking the air in, which is conceptually underlined with the heavy use of flutes. It‘s a blissful walk in the garden, a “paradise“ contrasting with “hell“, as the artist described the writing process for the two, linked albums, Vulnicura and Utopia. This was followed with Fossora (2022) and by that time the Cornucopia tour was already underway, where, according to Björk herself, “digital possibilities of the 21st century are transported to a 19th-century stage”. A world, an otherworld, is on display, where digital visuals, surround sound, echo chamber, specially designed instruments and a progressive, modern stage production envelop the audience, while Björk herself makes the trip from a heart-wrenching situation to a place of peace and serenity. All of it made possible by the grace of the highest art form.

Of course, and as has been shown, as with all the great artists, it‘s difficult to pin Björk down. The descriptions above nonetheless contain something about her artistic stance and outlook in general. Everything is just so pure and passionate, damn the actual outcomes. She’s a spirit, simple as that. To quote Mike Scott: “Man gets tired / Spirit don’t / Man surrenders / Spirit won’t / Man crawls / Spirit flies / Man seems / Spirit is / Man dreams / The spirit lives / Man is tethered / Spirit is free.”

The great pioneer

It was a gruelling day. In the summer of 2011, I found myself in Manchester, having been promptly flown there to cover the launch of Björk’s Biophilia multimedia event, some months before the interview quoted at the beginning. I was to report back to my employer, Morgunblaðið, straight after the show so they could publish something the day after. Additionally, I was to write 3,000 words for the Sunday edition.

My proclamations down the line after the curtain fell were nothing less than ecstatic, and how could they not be? I had witnessed something truly extraordinary, from an artist whose ascendance seemed never ending, as Philip Larkin said about the Beatles: “When you get to the top, there is nowhere to go but down. But The Beatles could not get down.” These were my words in the paper: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. You can now talk about her in the same breath as Stockhausen and the Beatles. It’s impossible to describe where she is headed, and it’s incredible how she works with all the technology we have today, creating music that is ridiculously “arty” yet accessible at the same time.”

“After my violently happy phone call to Iceland it was straight to bed, shuffling through dark, dank Manchester streets with a full-blown gout attack in the right leg!”

On the day itself, we got a tour with production manager Peter van der Velde where he led us through Dr. Frankenstein‘s lab as he laughingly called it. All these specially built instruments, giant pendulums, electrical shock poles and whatnot were stored in a hall in Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum. Biophilia was an album, apps, concert, school, technological experiment and an environmental manifesto. “Biophilia is an endlessly progressive work,” van der Velde said to me, almost sternly: “A new ground is being broken and that‘s a simple fact.” Everybody was transfixed. Ásmundur Jónsson, Björk‘s long-time collaborator and Smekkleysa/Bad Taste label manager, was standing beside me throughout the show: “I‘m always excited for a Björk concert, whether it‘s in a church or a warehouse. But this … this is something else. You can‘t but help thinking about the great 20th-century music pioneers when you experience something like this…”

After my violently happy phone call to Iceland, it was straight to bed, shuffling through the dark, dank Manchester streets with a full-blown gout attack in the right leg! To make the deadline I had to be up at four o’clock, hammering out the words with a glass of water and painkillers. What a glamorous life I led. I filed the copy and caught the train, drained while Björk was probably changing music forever for the umpteenth time. At this time she was 46 years old, five years younger than this writer is now. Yes, I know. It’s Björk’s world; we just live in it.

Arnar Eggert has a 25-year career as a music journalist. He also teaches at the University of Iceland. His book, Iceland Pop: Then, Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, is out now on Reaktion Books/The University of Chicago Press.