Björk Serenades a Volcano in “Sorrowful Soil” Video: Watch

Björk has shared a video for Fossora’s “Sorrowful Soil,” directed by Viðar Logi. Seen through an oval frame, the video shows Björk singing her eulogy to her late mother in the vicinity of the recently erupted volcano Fagradalsfjall. Speaking with Pitchfork earlier this year, she said she chose the location “because it’s about the mother energy, so the volcano is obviously giving that.” Watch the video below.

In a press release, Björk added:

sorrowful soil is a song i wrote from random improvisations .. i kinda thought i was writing another song but then when i edited it i threw away most of the stuff and this is what stood there staring at me
for me, sorrowful soil and ancestress are the 2 songs on fossora written for my mother … ancestress is my take on funeral-music but sorrowful soil is written 2 years before and mirrors more that last chapter .
at the time i had been working with the fantastic hamrahlid choir and wanted to give them the piece they deserved , and with that intention unknowingly wrote what the conductor þorgerður ingólfsdóttir said was the most difficult piece they ever sang . it has 9 voices, not the usual 4 ( sopran, alt, teno , bass ) which took the choir evenings of a whole summer to rehearse, i am so incredibly grateful to them for this sacrifice and you can hear all of it in the recording
the lyric is an attempt for an eulogy and instead of the dry fact checking : place of birth , job, marriage , i wanted to celebrate the biological data like the fact that most girls are born with 400 eggs … and then in their lifetime they make 2-3 nests…
when my grandfather passed away there was a pamphlet at the hospital advising relatives how to talk to loved ones before they pass away. i loved how it went really generic and universal and said that all of them will give families to-do-lists (dry-cleaning and such)
but also ask if they did well .
the last part of the lyric is following this advice

Read Pitchfork’s recent Cover Story “Björk: Mother, Daughter, Force of Nature” and check out the Pitchfork Review podcast episode about the new record and Pitchfork’s afternoon at Björk’s cabin in the volcanic wilderness. Björk also recently released a podcast of her own.

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