• News

• All

Nov 21, 2023 By Mark Redfern

Björk and Rosalía have shared their previously announced charity song, “Oral,” via an AI-assisted music video. Proceeds from the song will help fund the legal fight to stop foreign-owned fish farming in Björk’s native Iceland. Carlota Guerrero directed the “Oral” video, in which avatars of the two singers spar with each other and engage in some swordplay. Watch it below.

Björk wrote and produced “Oral,” with additional production and vocal arrangements from Rosalía. Björk originally wrote the song between 1997’s Homogenic and 2001’s Vespertine, and only rediscovered it this past March.

When “Oral” was announced in October, Björk issued this statement: “I am offering a song me and Rosalía sang together. The profits will [go] to help the fight against fish farming in Iceland… People at the fjord Seyðisfjörður have stood up and protested against fish farming starting there. We would like to donate sales of the song to help with their legal fees. And hopefully it can be an exemplary case for others.

“Iceland has the biggest untouched nature in Europe. And still today it has its sheep roaming free in the mountains in the summers. Its fish has swum free in our lakes, rivers, and fjords.

“So when Icelandic and Norwegian business men started buying fish farms in the majority of our fjords, it was a big shock and rose up as the main topic this summer. We don’t understand how they had been able to do this for a decade with almost no regulations stopping them. This has already had devastating effect on wildlife and the farmed fish are suffering in horrid health conditions and since a lot of them have escaped, they have started changing the DNA in the Icelandic salmon to the worse and could eventually lead to its extinction.

“There is still a chance to safe the last wild salmon of the north. Our group would like to dare these business men to retract their farms! We would also like to help invent and set strict regulations into Iceland’s legal system to guard nature. The majority of the nation already agrees with us. So this protest is about putting the will of the people into our rule-systems.”

Proceeds from the song “will be used to support a legal case against the fisheries, brought forth by residents of the town of Seyðisfjörður on the eastern side of Iceland.” You can also donate directly here.

Björk released a new album, Fossora, last year via One Little Independent.

Subscribe to Under the Radar’s print magazine.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.