Bjork on Iceland: 'We don't go to church, we go for a walk'

Bjirk used to walk across the tundra singing at the top of her lungs. John Grant left America for its rocky grandeur and Sigur Ros's music captures its isolation. What is it about the Icelandic landscape that hypnotises artists?

"I was brought up in the suburbs of Reykjavik," says Bjirk, sitting in a small cafe in the heart of the Icelandic capital while the rain skitters about outside. "I lived next to the last block of flats, and then it was moss and tundra. I used to walk a lot on my own and sing at the top of my lungs. I think a lot of Icelandic people do this. You don't go to church or a psychotherapist - you go for a walk and feel better."

Iceland's most celebrated musician is feeling particularly impassioned about her homeland: she had just held a press conference to raise awareness of the threat to the Icelandic highlands, an area of extraordinary beauty and ecological diversity that may be irreparably damaged by plans to lay a subsea power cable to the UK, accompanied by above-ground power stations and infrastructure.