Björk Discusses New Album Fossora, Coming This Fall
Last fall, Björk started teasing a new album that would be ideal for the pandemic pastime of “clubbing in the living room.” Today, in a new interview with The Guardian, we learn that the album is called Fossora and that it’s coming this fall.
That’s not all we learn! Fossora is reportedly not as much of rave album as promised, but according to reporter Chal Ravens, “the album’s two lodestones are bass clarinet” (specifically a sextet of bass clarinets, used percussively) “and violent outbursts of gabber,” the hardcore techno subgenre. The Indonesian punk duo Gabber Modus Operandi, who apparently got a lot of burn during Björk’s pandemic dance parties, are among the contributors. She explains that mixture of elements:
“Here I am, this lady stuck in my living room in lockdown, and it’s a really serious song for four and a half minutes. And then it’s one minute of” – she bolts up from her chair and starts pumping her arms to a silent beat – “WOO!”
She describes the album as look at normal daily life in the fantasy world heard on 2017’s Utopia, which was her “escape” album after 2015’s divorce tragedy Vulnicura: “Let’s see what it’s like when you walk into this fantasy and, you know, have a lunch and farrrrt and do normal things, like meet your friends.” She cagily calls it an “in love” album with two objects of affection, as exemplified by songs like “Atopos” and “Fungal City.”
Beyond the bass clarinet sextet, Fossora features Björk’s daughter Doa on “Her Mother’s House” and her son Sindri on another track. There’s also a serpentwithfeet feature and “a poem by the 18th-century fisherwoman and drifter Látra-Björg,” as well as two songs written for Björk’s mother, who died in 2018, “Sorrowful Soil” and “Ancestress.” According to Ravens, “On the cover, [Björk] is a glowing forest sprite, her fingertips fusing with the fantastic fungi under her hooves.”
UPDATE (8/24): In a tweet on Wednesday, Björk revealed the artwork for its lead single “Atopos,” which is “coming soon”: