On March 20, Hey Elbow released their fourth album FLOCK, a 40-minute immersive work released digitally and on blue transparent vinyl. Today, April 24 – the same day they perform the work live at Intonal in Malmö – they release – In Parts – another way of exploring its ambient, droning, improvisational, jazzy, electronic, and choral vocal textures.
Artist: Hey Elbow
Album: FLOCK – In Parts
Release date: April 24
Label: Adrian Recordings
Bandcamp: https://heyelbow.bandcamp.com/album/flock-in-parts
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0KXfwswSjewSPGRW9Zn4qv?si=yOZnUn2IQ3qgCfpeommtWg
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/album/490732784/u
Get the beautiful vinyl:
https://adrian-recordings.myshopify.com/products/hey-elbow-flock-blue-transparent-vinyl
Artwork: Will Ek Uvelius
FLOCK live at Intonal Festival in Malmö on April 24
For this occasion, the ensemble is expanded with Malina Midera (synth) and Tove Bagge (viola). Instead of recreating the recording, the performance is intended as a reconstruction – a new state shaped in direct relation to the space, time, and the musicians present.
Since their start in Malmö in 2013, Hey Elbow has worked from a consciously non-hierarchical approach, where collective processes and active listening replace fixed roles and traditional divisions of labor. Their music is in constant motion: instrumental functions shift between foreground and background, melody and texture, structure and dissolution.
Through earlier releases — Every Other (2015), C0C0C0 (2018), and We Three (2020) — the group has developed a distinct sound balancing intimacy with spatial depth, where fragmentation and cohesion coexist. With FLOCK, this aesthetic expression evolves into a fully immersive sound environment.
With influences from ambient, drone, jazz, electronic music, and choral traditions, FLOCK approaches improvisation not as a genre but as a method – rooted in attentive listening, shared responsibility, and situational decision-making.
