Bjork was the name that prompted the most excited gasps at the official press launch of Manchester International Festival back in March. But if Manchester was thrilled at the prospect of calling the Icelandic singer all theirs for 18 days. Bjork is just as full of excitement to be back in the bosom of Manchester.

Her relationship with the city is a long one. Way back in 1990, she hooked up with local dance music trio 808 State to sing on and co-write two tracks on their ground-breaking 1991 album ex:el.

Fans of her band The Sugarcubes, 808 State brought Bjork over for live shows, including their massive Manchester homecoming at the G-Mex (now Manchester Central). Bjork remembers it well, but more than anything remembers how that time shaped her future musical direction.

“I definitely feel grateful to Manchester,” she enthuses. “I came here so long ago as an 808 State fan and they took me to raves and clubbing.

“I had never seen anything like it! I still keep in touch with Graham (Massey, the group’s guitarist, keyboadist and saxophonist) and I am looking forward to spending time together with him while I’m here and meeting some people I haven’t met since back then.”

There’s a heartwarming mutual appreciation between Bjork and Manchester. And that goes a long way to explaining the reason why MIF’s director Alex Poots has tirelessly pursued Bjork for the festival. That she had a new album that goes beyond all the usual parameters of music making meant that Poots struck MIF gold when she agreed to take part.

Biophilia – set for release later this year but showcased live last night at Campfield Market, on the corner of Liverpool Road and Deansgate – not only features the kind of brave and unconventional approach to music making that Bjork is legendary for, but it is also the world’s first ‘app’ album, meaning the songs can be listened to and played with.

“The people at MIF are helping me set up a prototype that hopefully we can elaborate on in the other cities we will go to with the tour,” Bjork
explains. “Each app has not only a natural element as a theme but also a musicology element. So it is written with educational things in mind.

“For example: Crystalline, the crystal song, teaches you about structures in music; Hollow, the DNA song, about rhythm and time signatures; Solstice, the pendulum song, helps you to write your own gravity driven counterpoint and so on.

“I wanted something inspiring acoustically for children. From the beginning of the project, I wrote with the children in mind – the frustrated music teacher in me,” she laughs.

“It was always made with the educational in mind. I hope they enjoy it. I can’t wait to hear the results.”

In a sense, the ability of the songs to evolve and grow in other people’s hands is a tidy but not accidental mirroring of the inspiration for the album itself – Bjork’s enduring fascination with nature.

“I feel the context of the city and nature in the Icelandic style had a big effect on me – where the two can co-exist,” she says.

“A lot of people there have a private relationship with nature (Bjork famously used to head out into the wilderness, Von Trapp style, and sing to the Heavens). They spend time in nature on their own. Spatially, that is dramatically different from some of the urban experiences I’ve had.

“I feel I have always seen myself in context with nature in that way, but perhaps this album is the first one where I’ve made it the priority.

“For me, nature isn’t only pretty or romantic. It is dramatic, creative, destructive; it has a lot of energy. I tried to capture that in the songs.”

It’s a good job she has a natural passion for the subject, because visualising Biophilia has not been without its complications.

“It was like I went to school again”, she says about the volume of research involved.

But for someone who has been experimenting with touchscreen technology to make music since 2007’s Volta album, the timing for Biophilia was perfect. “It felt like technology had finally caught up with us,” she laughs.

Technology and science, too, inform some of the instruments Bjork has built to take the show on tour.

An enormous barrel organ sits in one corner of the stage in the shadow of a giant pendulum device that harnesses the earth’s gravitational pull to make some of the most delicate sounds imaginable. Across the stage, a specially adapted pipe organ does the bidding of an iPad, while a 24-piece choir swarms around Bjork for the whole show.

Campfield Market is an inspired choice of venue for such unexpected staging; suitably small and a mix of grandeur and ruins with its domed ceiling but slightly ramshackle exterior. “I wanted it to be intimate but still have room for all the specially made instruments,” says Bjork.

On paper, it is definitely the most experimental album and tour of her career. But it reflects her passion for nature as a subject.

“I feel this century is the first one for a few hundred years that nature and civilisation can collaborate,” says Bjork, who has repeatedly campaigned against the sale of Iceland’s natural resources to energy companies and fought for sustainable approaches.

“Not only can they, but they have to; it is an emergency!

“But it can be a happy emergency since all this cutting edge technology can be fun.

“I feel people in power should do everything they can to go green in every way possible.

“Not only is it an environmental must but it actually saves money in the long run.”

»Bjork plays at Campfield Market until July 16. Tickets are £45.

For a review of the first night go to: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/entertainment/manchester_international_festival/s/1425401_review-bjork-performs-biophilia-at-manchester-international-festival

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