November Will Bring a Live Album from Björk and an Icelandic Choir, Born from Vocal-Electronic Rebalancing During Pandemic Rehearsals

The extra rehearsal time afforded by pandemic lockdowns gave Björk the chance to do something she says is usually only possible in the studio: recalibrate the live balance between vocals and electronics, song by song. The result of that process will arrive this November 27 as the live album "Björk Orkestral with the Hamrahlíð Choir," available in LP, CD, Blu-ray, and DVD formats, now open for pre-order.

The recording was captured on October 24, 2021, at Reykjavik's Harpa concert hall, one of four Orkestral series performances Björk held there that year. The series stripped away the elaborate stage designs typical of her recent tours in favor of a pared-down setup, mobilizing over 100 Icelandic musicians, with proceeds donated to the local women's shelter Kvennaathvarfið.

Her collaborator that night was the Hamrahlíð Choir, conducted by its founder Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir herself. The set centered on 2004's "Medúlla" — an album recorded almost entirely with vocals — paired with several songs originally written for other arrangements: "Hidden Place" from "Vespertine," "Cosmogony" from "Biophilia," "Unravel" from "Homogenic," and "New World" from "Selmasongs."

Björk's connection to this choir runs deeper than a single performance. She herself is an alumna of the Hamrahlíð College Choir, a youth choral program founded by Ingólfsdóttir in 1967. The choir later contributed to "Body Memory" on 2017's "Utopia," the touring production of "Cornucopia" that began at New York's The Shed in 2019, and "Sorrowful Soil" from her installation at Iceland's National Gallery.

Speaking about the recording, Björk said the extended rehearsal period brought on by the pandemic allowed her to explore how vocals and electronics could coexist live, "For me it's a philosophical question, how nature and technology can live in harmony." She also noted these performances gave her a chance to "adjust older songs that I felt I hadn't yet built up enough live experience with."

The album's ten tracks, in order, are "Pleasure Is All Mine," "Hidden Place," "Cosmogony," "Sonnets / Unrealities XI," "Unravel," "Vertebræ by Vertebræ," "Who Is It," "Mouth's Cradle," "Where Is the Line," and "New World."