This Is The Last…

Pitchfork got first crack at interviewing Bjork about her upcoming album, Volta. To be fair though, one of Pitchfork’s writers was already friends with Matthew Barney, so he already had an in.

Here is the first of a series of Pitchfork interviews with Bjork.

Pitchfork: Marching–both the rhythm of feet and the concept of marching itself–seems to play a big part in this record. What’s the significance of marching?

Björk: I just wanted to get rhythmic again. Medulla was my way of pulling out of that, refusing to be categorized as ‘Oh what rhythm is she going to do next?’ Just feeling the pressure of all these young drum programmers or producers or whatever you call them contacting me, like, who was going to be the flavor of the month. It had become this kind of fashion statement, it just wasn’t right.

I mean, I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It’s common, it’s in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who’ve got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it’s fun when it’s impulsive and it’s about fun. When it becomes clever, when it becomes more of a left-brain, who can mathematically out-do the other, it’s not so fun anymore. And maybe I just sort of pulled out and did a whole vocal album.