Björk has shared a new song, ‘Ancestress’, from her forthcoming album, Fossora.
The track is the third cut to be unveiled from the new record, which the Icelandic artist announced last month, after the songs ‘Atopos’ and ‘Ovule’. ‘Ancestress’ is a tribute to Björk’s mother, who passed away in 2018, and the track comes backed by a video which depicts a ritual funeral. It was directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, with whom Björk has worked in the past, and includes co-creative direction by James Merry and Björk herself. You can watch the video above.
Taking to Instagram to share ‘Ancestress’, Björk wrote: "This song is a letter to my mother, her story seen from my point of view. It is written in chronological order, the first verse is my childhood and so on. Only recently did I discover that this song is probably somehow inspired by an Icelandic song ‘Grafskrift’, which is somehow a very direct and patriarchal account of someone’s life.
"I probably wanted to approach this in a more feminine way – her biological and emotional story, not her professions, partners or dates of birth and death. I am very grateful to my son, Sindri Eldon, to arrange and sing vocals for the verses as he has a delicious voice and was very close to her.
"For 20 years I have not been able to attend funerals as something in them rubbed me the wrong way. Possibly a big part of it is after having lived a life of a thousand concerts, I probably have too strong ideas on how a ritual should be, what kinda sound, musical structure, words and it took me all this time to discover that for me all funerals should be outside. Probably what was offending me most was how can one set off the spirit in such a claustrophobic environment as a church? When the soul sets off, it needs to be outside so there is room for how enormous it becomes when it merges with the elements."
One Little Independent will release Fossora on September 30, 2022.
