The anticipation for Björk’s new album Fossora has been growing with the release of every single. So far, she’s unveiled, “Ovule,” “Atopos,” and now “Ancestress,” which is a seven-minute long opus about her late mother.
On Instagram, Björk shared that “Ancestress” was “written just after her wordly funeral and is probably a common musician’s reaction, the impulse of making your version of the story, later.” She continued, “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.”
This comes right after the pop star’s AnOther Magazine interview with prolific author Ocean Vuong, who is known for exploring his own grief for his mother within his work. Bjork told him, “Well, we just filmed the video for ‘Ancestress’ with Andy Huang, in this valley outside Jórukleif where she used to pick herbs to dry. By accident, a few years ago, I bought a cabin in the same valley. My family and I spread her ashes here just recently, too, because there was a three-year delay thanks to COVID.”
Watch the video for “Ancestress” above.
Fossora is out 9/30 via One Little Independent. Pre-save it here.
