Bjork, ethereal and preternaturally creative

Perhaps the most iconic and "Bjorky" interview with the Icelandic pop-star Bjork took place in a small room, in which Bjork deconstructs a television, describing with awe what she discovers to the camera. "Look at this, this looks like a city, like a little model of a city." She later explains her relationship to the television. "This is what an Icelandic poet told me. And I became so scared to the television that I always got headaches when I watched it. Then, later on, when I got my Danish book on television, I stopped being afraid. "

In this interview, Bjork comes off quirky and ethereal. She has oft been compared with aliens and otherworldly creatures, like when John Oliver opened his June 4, 2017 episode of Last Week tonight with the line: "Earth, the adopted home world of Bjork."  Bjork's creative process and the experiences that combined to shape her into the ethereal fairy-being we now know are particularly interesting.

Bjork began her creative journey in the Icelandic town of Reykjavik. In a 1988 interview, while she was still touring with her first commercially successful band the Sugarcubes, she describes her native Iceland: "very few people, and very few trees. And very few insects!" she chimes, her raspy voice fully formed at age 23.

Bjork took piano and flute lessons from a young age, living with her mother in a Reykavik commune and eventually attending a music high-school. In an 2010 interview, Bjork explains her creative process at a young age. "I used to go to school, which was about half and hour walk, and I would sing. I had no idea that anyone would ever hear it, it was just my method of interacting with the environment, you know, especially spatially... Iceland is amazing for spacial-ness if there is such a word because its so stark, you know, there are very few people, very few plants. There is a lot of room for you." Her motivation at this stage was clearly intrinsic. She used her voice to interact with her surroundings. Asked in a 2002 interview: "why are you creative?" she responds, "I'm not sure, I think I've always been like this."

She followed her natural creative drives, forming various groups until in 1986, she formed the Sugarcubes with then-husband Pór Eldon. With the Sugarcubes, Bjork's vocals seemed boxed-in by the rhythmic pulsing of the bass and drums. Quintessential 1980s New Order-esque back-track clashes with he boundless passion.

Bjork embarked on a solo career in 1993, and has since become known for her free-floating, transcendent vocals. And indeed, from a technical perspective her voice is astounding. She belts each and every note at top volume, imbuing each phrase with pure, guttural emotion.

It seems retrospectively that Bjork was meant to expand beyond the typical rock-band format, to pursue her own musical interests. When she teamed up with producer Nellee Hooper in 1993, she explains,  "I was like a kid in a toyshop." She describes her transition from classic rock music to more synth based, orchestrally inspired music: "I know some people think that electronic music lacks passion. But I don't agree. If you put passion into your music, then it will be passionate, and if you don't put passion into you music, then it won't be passionate." Still, at this point, Bjork maintained a detachment from popular expectations and paved her own form of pop-music.

Bjork has experimented with various musical styles and formats throughout her career, some drawing from her native Iceland's orchestral forms, some more grounded in musical theater, such as her cheeky hit: "It's Oh So Quiet."

After having trail-blazed a one-of-a-kind genre fusing electronic, orchestral, and massive, spacious string parts with her guttural, expansive voice in her first seven studio albums, Bjork also became one of the first major artist to embrace 3D "scientific musical" album format in her eight album, Biophilia. Released in 2011, Biophilia is an interactive app-based experience in which viewers can immerse themselves. Like much of her work, Bjork seems in Biophilia to attempt to recreate the dramatic, sparse landscapes of her native Iceland; or, furthermore, to immerse her listener in the vast gravity of her emotion.