Pitchfork

Björk's album covers have always been visual feasts, reflecting the spirit of the music inside while helping to maintain Björk's status as a brilliant artist. A new addition to the collection is always exciting, but the unveiling of the artwork for Volta (due out May 7 in the UK and May 8 in the U.S. on One Little Indian/Atlantic) is extra special, as Pitchfork was able to discuss the image with Björk herself.

(For part one of Brandon Stosuy's interview with Björk, click here. For part two, here. And part three, here!)

As you can see, the photo's bright colors contrast sharply with the muted tones of the covers of her last two albums, Medulla and Vespertine. This mirrors the sound of Volta, which was inspired by the universal urge to dance.

"All I wanted to do for this album was just to have fun and do something that was full-bodied and really up," Björk told Stosuy in the first part of their chat. The album cover is meant to evoke pagan femininity and, to some degree, feminism, which is a running theme throughout the music of Volta. "It's not necessarily about me as a woman, but just women," Björk told Stosuy. "Kind of that long leap of 10,000 years back, when they [were] in harmony with nature, and just little things like the fact that there are 13 full moons in a year and most women have certain things happening to them 13 times a year, but Christianity wanted to have 12 months, just to try to put that off."

Conflict with conventional organized religion is another undercurrent of Volta. "It's about being exhausted with the self-importance of religion, and thinking, 'okay, wait a minute, maybe we are one tribe, and we're actually part of nature,'.

"I was reading a lot of books the last couple of years, especially about things that interest me a lot, like neuroscience, about the two hemispheres and about how we actually are animal species, and, like, female medicine from nature, and how Christianity forced us to ignore nature and the body. There's a lot of interesting books being written by my generation of scientists that they're kind of looking at things slightly differently from how I was taught about it, at least when I was 12.

"It's sort of trying to put out some good vibes for the little princesses out there. There are actually other things than losing a glass slipper. I mean, part of it was having a little daughter and realizing, what are we telling girls? All these books out there about finding your prince. All these little girls, all they want to do is be pretty and find their prince, and I'm like, what happened to feminism here?"

"I also wanted to have some sort of shaman sort of voodoo thing, to get rid of a lot of tension. But in a happy way, not as a destructive thing, more like a celebration."

The voodoo/shaman aspect is most evident in the Volta promotional shots, the album's inside artwork, and the cover of the first single, "Earth Intruders", which will be released as a digital download on April 9. A taste of that artwork is visible on Bjork's website right now.

"It was a magical atmosphere in the photo shoot. It was kind of fun, because it wasn't about me, it was about this sort of spirit of-- like a woman who is kind of...into rave, no I'm just kidding. Like, a sort of celebration of that ancient, but at the same time kind of neon."

01 Earth Intruders
02 Wanderlust
03 Dull Flame of Desire
04 Innocence
05 I See Who You Are
06 Vertebrae by Vertebrae
07 Pneumonia
08 Hope
09 Declare Independence
10 My Juvenile

Dates:

04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-02 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall
05-05 New York, NY - United Palace Theater
05-08 New York, NY - Apollo Theater
05-12 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theatre
05-15 Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
05-19 San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
05-23 Vancouver, British Columbia - Deer Lake Park
05-26 Gorge, WA - Gorge Amphitheatre (Sasquatch!)
06-22 Pilton, England - Glastonbury Festival
06-28 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter
07-01 Gdynia, Poland - Open'er Festival
07-05 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-25 Nyon, Switzerland - Paleo Festival
09-08 Toronto, Ontario - Virgin Festival