“There was this music in me that no one could do”

At 59, Björk, whose full name is Björk Gudmundsdottir, has lost none of her energy. In the fall of 2024, she presented an immersive sound installation at the Center Pompidou, in Paris. Just before Christmas she released the book associated with her latest tour, Cornucopia : The Book (Les Editions Braquage, 2024). Finally, the film recounting this musical adventure will soon be broadcast on the Apple platform, before a series of screenings, which should take place from March, in French cinemas.

I wouldn’t have gotten here if…

…If, at 14, I hadn’t walked into a record store in Reykjavik and found myself suddenly immersed in a unique artistic community. There were musicians, artists, writers, performers. I was the youngest, but there was no hierarchy. I cleaned the floors and I also helped organize concerts, I printed and put up posters. They paid me with recorded cassettes. I was listening to a lot of stuff and I was already playing in a punk band. I remember the boss made me listen to John Cage. I told him I didn’t like this atonal music, that this guy was a coward. I had already heard Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen at music school and I liked it, but there was no emotion there. He told me he was going to prove me wrong, that Cage was a romantic.

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