Hey Elbow

Biography

After a several-year hiatus, Malmö-based trio Hey Elbow return renewed with their fourth album, FLOCK — a 40-minute immersive work that unfolds as a single continuous piece. Released digitally and on blue transparent vinyl via Adrian Recordings, FLOCK marks the group’s most conceptually unified release to date.

Artist: Hey Elbow
Album: FLOCK
Release date: March 20, 2026
Label: Adrian Recordings
Format: Digital / Blue transparent vinyl
File under: Ambient • Drone • Improvisation • Jazz • Electronic • Choir

Vinyl pre-order:
https://adrian-recordings.myshopify.com/products/hey-elbow-flock-blue-transparent-vinyl

Artwork: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gdpwo6je3ye7kjpbo1do9/HEY-ELBOW-FLOCK-ALBUM-COVER-FRONT.jpg?rlkey=uk6xwst0ykhjy3hciu31hmd0o&dl=0
Artwork: Will Ek Uvelius

Formed in Malmö in 2013, Hey Elbow have always operated through collective instinct rather than hierarchy. Their music resists fixed roles: instruments drift between foreground and background, melody and texture, structure and collapse. Across earlier releases — Every Other (2015), C0C0C0 (2018), and We Three (2020) — the trio developed a sound that is at once melodic and fragmented, intimate yet spacious. FLOCK extends this approach into a fully immersive listening experience.

Rooted in ambient, drone, improvisation, jazz, electronic music, and choir-like vocal textures, FLOCK explores improvisation as a practice of deep listening and shared responsibility. The album reflects on how individuality functions within a group: when to assert one’s voice, and when to dissolve into collective motion.

Originally conceived as a multidisciplinary live project, FLOCK began as an open collaboration between three musicians, three dancers, and a set designer. Each participant entered the process not as an interpreter, but as a co-creator, shaping the work through presence, movement, and responsiveness. From this environment, the music was distilled into a recorded form that still carries the imprint of bodies in motion, spatial awareness, and human interaction.

Ambient textures, spacious electronics, subtle rhythmic shifts, and jazz-inflected interplay coexist in a sound world that is fluid, patient, and attentive. Silence, pulse, and timbre are treated as equal elements — mirroring the dynamics of bodies navigating shared space. The album was further expanded through invited improvisers, whose contributions added new textures and trajectories. This openness remains central to FLOCK: the music is porous rather than fixed, continuously reshaped in live performance through collaboration with local musicians.

FLOCK will be released on March 20, 2026, with a live performance at Intonal Festival (Malmö) on April 24, where Hey Elbow will be joined by Malina Midera (synth) and Tove Bagge (viola). The performance is not a repetition of the recording, but a reassembly — sound unfolding in response to the moment.

Hey Elbow are:
Ellen Pettersson – horns, electronics, synths
Julia Ringdahl – vocals, guitar
Liam Amner – drums

With approximately 150 concerts worldwide, Hey Elbow have steadily refined a distinct and exploratory musical voice. FLOCK stands as a meditation on collaboration, curiosity, and the delicate balance between leading and following — a work that does not aim to conclude, but to open.