Björk Interviews Herself
Ahead of her new album Utopia, Björk has interviewed herself for W Magazine. “before i fell asleep last night i tried to think of some like normcore magaziney questions,” she begins, before straying into the leftfield with her first: “what is your relationship with flutes?” She goes on to discuss working with Arca (“now that everyone is more aware of the culprits of sexism, we should be able to embrace collaborations and guys don’t get all the credit”), the importance of the “sexual force,” and the nuance behind the utopian theme of her new record: “the idea was never to fanatically pollyanna forth some ideal perfection but rather a speculation of what our fantasies are and what the reality is and where can they help each other.” Read it in full here.
Of the album’s theme, Björk elaborates:
i feel in this time of trump it is a necessity to have a plan, a manifesto, an alternative. it’s a question of life and death for our species. as a musician i feel i can suggest the musical poetic angle which is that after tragedies one has to invent a new world, knit it or embroider, make it up. it’s not gonna be given to you because you deserve it, it doesn’t work that way. you have to imagine something that doesn’t exist and dig a cave into the future and demand space. it’s a territorial hope affair. at the time, that digging is utopian but in the future it will become your reality.
Utopia is out in November. It features “The Gate,” which has a sexually charged music video in which Björk wears a bespoke Gucci dress that took 870 hours to make.
Read Pitchfork’s interview “Björk’s Words of Wisdom on Technology, Multitasking, and Collaboration” on the Pitch, and revisit our Sunday Review of Homogenic.
This story originally appeared on Pitchfork.
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