Björk has released a song titled “Ancestress” from her new album Fossora. The track, a tribute to her late mother, comes with a video depicting a ritual funeral. It was directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, with co–creative direction by Björk and James Merry. Watch it below.
Björk wrote on Instagram, “For 20 years I have not been able to attend funerals as something about them rubbed me the wrong way.” In a new interview with Pitchfork, she elaborated, “I would help organize the musicians and the set list, but I couldn’t go inside the church [for family members’ funerals]. I would just get so mad. I’m an atheist, so it was like, ‘Wait a minute. There’s a priest here who has never met the person who passed away?’ It’s like having an MC rapping raps that he didn’t write.” Of “Ancestress,” she added, “If I was a priest, it’s what I would’ve said at the funeral.”
This is the third song Björk has shared from Fossora, following the runway-ready visual for “Ovule” and lead single “Atopos” and its mushroom-rave music video. The album arrives September 30. Björk opened up about the making of Fossora, her fascination with fungi, her family, motherhood, and more in an extensive interview with Pitchfork for a new cover story.
Fossora is the follow-up to 2017’s Utopia. After announcing the LP, Björk also launched a podcast called Björk: Sonic Symbolism. The first three episodes document the making of Debut, Post, and Homogenic.
Read Pitchfork’s Cover Story “Björk: Mother, Daughter, Force of Nature.”
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