Vulnicura (2015)

Vulnicura is the eighth studio album by Icelandic musician and singer Björk. It was produced by Björk, Arca and The Haxan Cloak, and released on 20 January 2015 by One Little Indian Records. Björk said the album expresses her feelings before and after her breakup with American contemporary artist Matthew Barney and the healing process.

Vulnicura was originally scheduled for release in March 2015, in conjunction with the Björk: Archives book and an exhibition about Björk's career at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; following an internet leak, it was released digitally two months early. No singles were released to promote the album but a series of innovative music videos were created, culminating in the 360-degree virtual reality exhibit Björk Digital. Vulnicura received widespread acclaim from critics, with many considering it one of her most honest and personal albums as well as her best output in a decade. It peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard 200 and received a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 58th Grammy Awards.

The companion album Vulnicura Strings was released on 6 November 2015. It features strings-only interpretations of the Vulnicura tracks and utilises an instrument designed by Leonardo da Vinci called the viola organista. By October 2015, the album had sold 250,000 copies worldwide.

Background and recording

After completing the tour for her previous project Biophilia (2011), 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. She told The Independent: "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."

In May 2013, Björk told the San Francisco Bay Guardian that she was in the early stages of a new album. In the same month, she told the San Francisco Chronicle she had "enough songs that I'm ready to see the next thing".

Venezuelan producer Arca co-produced Vulnicura. Björk approached Arca after her manager sent her Arca's mixtape &&&&& (2013); Arca then DJ'ed at Björk's Biophilia tour afterparty and the two started working together afterwards. Björk was not aware of Arca's work with Kanye West and FKA Twigs (on Yeezus and EP2, 2013) but she soon appreciated it along with Arca's knowledge of her own discography. Arca described working with Björk, whom she has called a musical inspiration, as "healing", and said: "The way she exists as a human is a big influence on the way I exist as a human."

On 7 October 2014, Björk announced on her Facebook page that she would not attend the British premiere of her concert film Björk: Biophilia Live at the BFI London Film Festival because she was too busy working on the album, and confirmed a 2015 release date. British musician and producer The Haxan Cloak announced on Twitter on 6 January 2015 that he had worked on the album, calling the collaboration "an honour".

On 14 January 2015, Björk posted a handwritten note on her Facebook page announcing the album's title, Vulnicura, its track list and a March 2015 release date. Vulnicura means "Cure for Wounds" (Vulnus + Cura) in Latin, and Björk described it as "a more traditional album than Biophilia for what concerns songwriting. It's about what may come to a person at the end of a relationship. It talks about the dialogues we may have in our heads and in our hearts, the healing processes."

The music on Vulnicura has been described by critics as incorporating electronic, avant-garde, and ambient music.

The album is primarily composed of string arrangements and electronic beats, as a return to the sound Björk pursued on her 1997 album Homogenic. In an interview with Pitchfork, Björk exposed how working on string arrangements served as a way to keep her mind busy after her breakup: "The only way I could deal with that was to start writing for strings; I decided to become a violin nerd and arrange everything for 15 strings and take a step further."

The involvement of Arca came in late stages of the writing process, which Björk described as "such a contrast, the most fun music-making I've ever had, with the most tragic subject matter [...] I just sat next to [Arca] for weeks, and we did the whole album. It's the quickest I've ever worked [...] It's one of those crazy things in life where people from opposite ends meet, and you've got so much to teach each other."