Coming to the end of her a run of large-scale residencies in the US, Mexico and Europe in 2019, Björk is taking her Cornucopia show to the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium and San Francisco’s Chase Center. As with the previous tour dates, d&b partner Southby Productions deployed a Soundscape system powered by the d&b En-Scene object-based mixing and En-Space room emulation software.
Cornucopia draws on Björk’s 2017 album Utopia, and is directed by Lucrecia Martel and Björk with co-creative director James Merry. Part of its ambition is to use sound as a tool to increase audience engagement and immersion. The production is a theatrical performance, with spectacular visuals and vocals combining in a full sensory experience for the audience.
For the West Coast shows, the team is using a 180° Soundscape system to align with the size of the venues. The team also used a new tool, En-Snap, the result of a d&b partnership with Gareth Owen Sound. En-Snap enables a 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,’ says the tour’s System Tech, Jack Blenkinsopp. ‘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.’
FOH engineer John Gale is focused on ensuring the smooth transfer of the system between shows.
‘My greatest concern was ensuring that 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,’ he says. ‘Yet the system performed exactly the same. I believe that, no matter where you are sitting, there’s really good coverage with the Soundscape experience.’
Over the past couple of years, d&b have made significant new developments to Soundscape, 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 says. ‘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 tour is so bespoke that Southby decided to airfreight the elements that were used on the previous European Arena run, to California, while the main loudspeaker 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,’ says Southby Productions Director, Chris Jones. ‘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.’
