Björk On New LP: “This Is Like My Tinder Album”
Yesterday, Björk launched a pre-order for her new album — the follow-up to 2015’s Vulnicura — with the promise that it was “coming out very soon.” Today, she’s on the cover of Dazed magazine (shot by Jesse Kanda) with an accompanying story that offers up some additional details on her latest project.
The new album — which, when the feature was reported mid-June, was still unfinished and untitled — was co-produced by Arca. The two of them started collaborating from the very beginning of the album process, and Björk started working on it almost immediately after finishing Vulnicura. She describes her collaboration with Arca as “the strongest musical relationship I’ve had,” and likens it to the relationship between Joni Mitchell and Jaco Pastorius for Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter: “You can tell they’re doing the tango. It’s that synergy when two people lose their ego.” The album also features a collaboration with Texas producer Rabit.
She describes it as her “dating album”: “It’s like my Tinder album. It is definitely about that search — and about being in love. Spending time with a person you enjoy on every level is obviously utopia, you know? I mean, it’s real. It’s when the dream comes real.”
It’s also subtly political: “Maybe that’s why it became a utopian theme — if we’re gonna survive not only my personal drama but also the sort of situation the world is in today, we’ve got to come up with a new plan,” she said. “If we don’t have the dream, we’re just not gonna change. Especially now, this kind of dream is an emergency.”
Some names of potential new songs are mentioned: “Allow,” “Loss,” “Features Creatures,” and “The Gate,” a “love song” that sounds like it could be a single because they’ve already shot a video directed by Andrew Thomas Huang for it.
The Dazed story writer Selim Bulut described the new songs as “feel[ing] lighter than air” and writes that “[Vulnicura]’s elegiac string arrangements [are] replaced by flutes and woodwind instruments.” The album also features birdsong to emphasizes its environmental element (something that Björk said she talked about with Anohni), using some original recordings from Björk and others from David Toop’s 1980 release Hekura.
There’s no details as to when it’ll be released yet, but hopefully soon!