Agnes Obel returns with a new album after 6 years: here's "The Meaning Of Flowers". Listen to the first single "Laymelli"

Agnes Obel breaks a six-year recording silence. The Danish singer-songwriter and composer has announced "The Meaning of Flowers", her fifth studio album, due out September 18th via Deutsche Grammophon. Anticipating it is the new single "Laymelli", already available (you can listen to it below).

Born in Copenhagen and long based in Berlin, Obel returns with her first album since 2020's "Myopia". As in her previous work, the Danish songwriter has kept near-total control over the making of the record: all twelve tracks were written, recorded, arranged and produced by the musician herself in her Berlin studio. Broadening the usual intimate, chamber-music dimension of her sound are several guest musicians, contributing violin, viola, cello, bass, lap steel, harmonium, flute, sax, percussion and backing vocals.
At the heart of "The Meaning of Flowers" lies a particularly wide-ranging web of literary and philosophical influences. Among the sources of inspiration are the poems of Enheduanna, the Sumerian priestess who lived in the third millennium BC and is considered the first author in history known by name, as well as Hannah Arendt's concept of natality and the writings of philosopher Emanuele Coccia on plants and metamorphosis.

But the record's most personal core stems from a fundamental change in Obel's life. After recording "Myopia", the Copenhagen-born musician became a mother for the first time, and she has dedicated the new album to her daughter. "She's the one who changed me, grew me and taught me so much – and I feel there's still so much to learn," she explained. Motherhood also runs through the meaning of the title track. With "The Meaning of Flowers", Obel sought to "get close to the feeling of a new beginning", describing "a new, boundless feeling of love that will never end".
Another of the new songs, "Blood So Red", grew instead out of reading Enheduanna's hymns dedicated to the goddess Inanna. Those ancient texts, Obel explained, "found their way into the song, bringing out my own epiphanies about childbirth and the laws of the body". "Gemini" and lead single "Laymelli" likewise bear the influence of Sumerian poetry, building a bridge between personal experience, myth and reflection on transformation.

"The Meaning of Flowers" will be Agnes Obel's fifth album, following 2010's "Philharmonics", 2013's "Aventine", 2016's "Citizen Of Glass" and 2020's "Myopia", marking her return with new music six years on from her last release.

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