Today, November 21, Björk’s birthday, and after its release has been postponed up to two times, ‘Oral’, the Icelander’s new solidarity single, is released.
Rosalía acts as a guest artist in this duet co-produced by Sega Bodega with which Guđmundsdóttir recovers an old song that she wrote 25 years ago, at the time of ‘Homogenic’ (1997), nothing less than her best album, inspired by the rhythm of dancehall, a music that Björk considers “the grandmother of reggaeton.”
‘Oral’ is a precedent for ‘Atopos’ even though the first one came out later. A beat with Caribbean echoes guides the song, in which a string orchestra dominates. Björk has had Rosalía motivated by the Catalan’s experiments with reggaeton in ‘MOTOMAMI’, and by her “incredible” voice. Björk’s vocal take is the same as the original recording. The Icelandic has highlighted that, in their respective vocal takes, the age of both (30 years) coincides.
‘Oral’ talks about “that moment when you meet someone, and you don’t know if it’s friendship or something more, and that turns you on. And you become very conscious of your lips. Maybe that’s why I called the song ‘Oral’. You don’t know what will happen if you take the first step. It’s a playful song, it’s not painful at all. And while I obviously didn’t write this song with salmon in mind, I like the fact that it’s an upbeat song.”
Björk has once again spoken out against the industrial farming of fish in Iceland, specifically wild salmon, a practice that she considers “terrible for the environment” and which constitutes “an extraordinarily cruel way of producing food.”
