User:Crikko/Björk's Ninth Album

♫ is the upcoming ninth studio album by Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk, tentatively scheduled to be released in 2015 by One Little Indian.

Background
After completing the touring schedule for her project Biophilia, which featured a series of apps and instruments created especially for the live show, Björk expressed interest in using the same instruments for her next project. As she explained in an interview with The Independent: "Now we actually have this all set up, I happen to know some of the best app programmers in the world, and I have the instruments I can just plug straight into the iPad and play whatever I have. So it seems kind of natural to work on an album where I don't have three years of prepping. But at the same time, it is a kind of extreme project. With every move you make, you had to add everything up...". In February 2013 she expressed in an interview published on Les Inrockuptibles her will to keep the next project secret until she had completed it. However, when asked about her next album in an interview with San Francisco Bay Guardian's journalist Emily Savage, she revealed being in the early stages of creating the album, a fact she further confirmed in an interview given to the San Francisco Chronicle by stating "I have enough songs that I'm ready to see the next thing." When Björk signed a distribution deal with Italian label Carosello Records for Italian releases, it was stated that the next project would see a release in 2014.

In mid 2011, Meredith Monk stated that she was doing a project with Björk, who covered her song "Gotham Lullaby" since her 1999 concerts at Union Chapel with the Brodsky Quartet, and with whom she was rumored to work with since 2005, when she invited the Icelandic singer to perform at her 40th Anniversary Tribute Concert at the Carnegie Hall. On August 28, 2012, Monk confirmed in a post on her official Facebook profile page, that the collaboration was finally realising as the two singer were in the process to do a duo album called Meredith and Björk together. As of January 2015, Björk hasn't confirmed this collaboration.

Sławomir Zubrzycki, a Polish musician who has reconstructed the viola organista from Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notes, confirmed that he was contacted by Björk, who has been interested to work with the instrument. The collaboration was confirmed in 2014.

During his March 7, 2014 Ask me Anything session on Reddit, American musician Skrillex has confirmed that a collaboration with Björk is in the works by stating: "[I've] been going back and forth with Björk over the last couple years, [...] but our schedules are always conflicting". They had previously met at an afterparty of Festival Imperial in Alajuela, where they talked about a collaboration.

In an interview with The Fader, Venezuelan producer Arca announced that he worked on Björk's ninth studio album. Although it was first reported that he was the sole producer of the album, it was later confirmed by the two artists that they co-produced the album together.

On October 7, 2014, Björk announced on her Facebook that she would not attend the British premiere of her concert film Björk: Biophilia Live at the BFI London Film Festival because of a recording duty in Iceland, confirming the release date of her new album for 2015.

British musician and producer The Haxan Cloak announced on Twitter on January 6, 2015, his involvement with Björk's new album, calling the collaboration "an honour".

Retrospective exhibition and book
On June 12, 2014, it was announced that the Biophilia apps were to be featured as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, thus becoming the first app to be part of the museum collection. A week later, the Museum announced that a retrospective exhibition of the singer's work will take place starting on March 7, 2015 until June 7, 2015. The exhibition, titled Björk, is curated by the director of MoMA PS1, Klaus Biesenbach, which commented on the exhibit: "Björk is an extraordinarily innovative artist whose contributions to contemporary music, video, film, fashion, and art have had a major impact on her generation worldwide, this highly experimental exhibition offers visitors a direct experience of her hugely collaborative body of work". The display will incorporate elements from her previous seven studio albums (excluding her 1977 juvenilia work Björk), and will focus on her multiple collaborations. Along with this exhibition, Björk announced a new narrative thread, written alongside longtime collaborator Sjón, that will tie all of her work together in a new music and film experience, developed together with Andrew Thomas Huang, who directed the video for "Mutual Core" (2012), and Autodesk. Visual artist Eric Hanson has directed the 12-minute film to be shown at the museum alongside Huang in Iceland, where he filmed the singer for a week using modern technologies like a helicopter-drone camera. M/M Paris have been confirmed to be working on a catalogue of Björk photos for the retrospective.

The catalogue was revealed to be part of a book entitled Björk: Archives, published by Thames & Hudson that will include 5 illustrated books with essays from Sjón, Biesenbach, Nicola Dibben, Timothy Morton and Alex Ross. The book will be released on March 30, 2015.

Release
Being the follow-up to Biophilia after more than three years, #B9 release was highly expected. Online music publications like Music Times, Time Out, FasterLouder, Gigwise, FACT, Dazed Digital, Pitchfork and Billboard included it in their list of the most anticipated albums of 2015, with Stereogum billing it as the tenth most anticipated album of 2015. DIY listed the upcoming release as one of the eleven reason to get excited about 2015, while NME included Björk in their list of 40 most anticipated comebacks for 2015.

Promotion
On January 7, 2015, Björk was announced as one of the performers of the 2015 Governors Ball. It was her first confirmed appearance since the conclusion of the Biophilia Tour and her first concert in New York since 2012.


 * Festivals performances
 * This concert will be a part of Governors Ball Music Festival

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