After some weeks of teasing and postponing its release, we finally get to listen to Björk’s new song featuring none other than Spanish phenomenon Rosalía. As you may have already read, Oral is a song that the Icelandic singer wrote over twenty years ago, when she was working on the trailblazing albums Homogenic (1997) and Vespertine (2001). “This is a 25-year-old song of mine I wrote and programmed inspired by a dancehall beat (the grandmother of reggaeton),” Björk admits in an Instagram post. And clearly, Rosalía was a perfect choice to bring it to the present day.
Adding to that statement, Björk says that “Rosalía’s experiments with the genre and her incredible voice made her an obvious guest for the song. I feel blessed she said yes, and she and her team are giving their work and all the profits to this battle. I think somehow there is an elegant resonance between the fact that both of our voices are the same age on the recording,” she concludes. Because let’s not forget that, despite Oral is a song about love, it has a political intention behind it: to fight against industrial fish farming in Iceland, more specifically, in the Seyðisfjörður fiord.
As we see in the beginning of the official music video, “Björk and Rosalía are donating all their rights to income generated by this song to the AEGIS non-profit organisation to combat open pen fish farming in Iceland. Their record companies have agreed to do the same. All funds raised will support legal fees for protesters, taking action to stop the development of intensive farms that harm wildlife, deform fish, and pose risks to salmon’s DNA and survival. Inmediate action is crucial.”
After this powerful statement, the video directed by Carlota Guerrero starts. In a diaphanous white setting, we see computer-generated images of the two superstars superposed to the bodies of two stunt models that engage in a poetic and beautiful martial arts fight. Their combined power, both physically and vocally, is a testament to the strength and commitment of Björk and Rosalía to fight for a better world.
