Following 2019’s run of large-scale residencies in the US, Mexico and Europe, Björk recently brought her ground-breaking immersive Cornucopia tour to the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium and San Francisco’s Chase Center – her first shows outside of her native Iceland in over two years.
As with her 2019 performances, d&b audiotechnik partner Southby Productions specified a d&b Soundscape system, powered by the d&b En-Scene object-based mixing and En-Space room emulation software, to deliver the show’s immersive audio elements.
The Cornucopia tour is based on Björk’s 2017 album Utopia. Directed by Lucrecia Martel and Björk with co-creative director James Merry, the show was designed to harness sound as a creative tool to enhance audience engagement and immersion. The overall production is more in line with that of a theatrical performance than a regular music concert, with showstopping visuals and the immersive sound system providing ‘a full sensory experience for the audience’.
The show was originally designed by Björk with system trials in a small studio situated in a lighthouse, on a remote Nordic Island. From that point, the scale of the show escalated to larger rehearsal spaces in order to utilise Soundscape’s capabilities to the fullest.
For the West Coast shows, a 180-degree Soundscape system was deployed to align with the size of the venues. The team also made use of a new tool called En-Snap, the result of a d&b partnership with Gareth Owen Sound. En-Snap is designed to allow straightforward cue-based control within the d&b Soundscape environment. The software tool connects directly to the d&b DS100 signal engine and, with a single click, stores the parameter values of all 64 sound objects and any En-Space room emulation setting as an En-Snap cue.
“Soundscape is key to giving the audience the experience they expect from a Björk show,” commented Jack Blenkinsopp, system tech for the tour. “Everything in these shows, from the visuals to the stage presence, to the audio experience, is quite special and Soundscape heightens the experience. There are a lot of moments in the show where we have positioned the sound objects to match their position on stage for instance the reverb chamber. It really draws the audience in towards the performance, and what is happening on stage whether that be Björk, the flutes or the choir. No other tool captures the audience so authentically like Soundscape.”
For John Gale, FOH engineer on the tour, the focus was very much on ensuring the smooth transfer of the system between shows.
“My biggest concern was ensuring we could scale the system, the LA venue and San Francisco venue were totally opposite, we were coming from a theatre to an arena in a short period of time,” Gale explained. “Yet the system performed exactly the same. I believe no matter where you are sitting there’s really good coverage with the Soundscape experience.”
d&b has introduced significant new developments to Soundscape over the past two years, particularly within the DS100. “It’s great to come back to a system two years later and see they have been continuing to develop the product in the background,” Gale continued. “The remit from Björk was that this needed to be a theatrical show and less of a pop concert and Soundscape truly allowed us to achieve this. Björk has been extremely happy.”
The control system and stage package for the Cornucopia tour was so specific that Southby, opted to airfreight the elements that were used on the previous European Arena run, to California, while the main speaker system components were supplied by Eighth Day Sound.
“Soundscape is integral to the Cornucopia Tour, the system is complex in its capabilities, yet its flexibility and scalability means we can deploy it all across the world,” said Chris Jones, director at Southby Productions. “Everyone is blown away by the results of Soundscape and the popularity of the system has cemented Southby’s place as one of the global specialists for Soundscape solutions.”
Speaking about the system during the European tour in 2019, Björk commented: “We spent a lot of time making sure that there will be synchronicity between the live music and the live visuals, Cornucopia is a celebration of the execution of that. I personally feel like it’s the most gorgeous sound that I’ve ever heard in a room.”