Björk Gudmundsdottir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1965, where she grew up in a communal household. Music was played 24 hours a day. Recalls Björk:

"I remember a queue by the record player. The record would finish and you'd be ready to put another one on."

At the age of five she was enrolled in music school where she studied flute and piano for ten years. Et the age of eleven she made an album with the help of her mother and friends. A big hit in Iceland, the eponymously titled Björk featured only one song written by Bjork herself, though she became an Icelandic celebrity on the strength of its success. Björk admits:

"I felt a lot of guilt. I promised myself that I would never front anything unless I was the one who did it."

So at the age of 14 she started forming punk bands. First came Exodus, then Tippi Tikarrass, then KUKL, a band that recorded two albums for the label run by the legendary UK anarchist band, Crass. According to Björk:

"When I was a punk there was no such thing as Icelandic music. We had to invent it. I started an all-girl punk band when I was 14 and I was the drummer, not the singer."

More recently Björk created her own infamous beats for the 2007 album "Volta".