Agnes Obel marks her long-awaited return with 'The Meaning of Flowers'

Goerne_06_2026_5725 1-2_© Caroline de Bon-Wiederhergestellt.jpg

08/21/2026

“The world created by Agnes Obel has that same magical realism that writer Angela Carter
tapped into: beautifully unsettling. Feet in the forest, head in the stars.”

Joyzine, on Myopia

The Danish-born, Berlin-based artist continues to defy genres
across 12 atmospheric and eclectic tracks

The Meaning of Flowers considers how new life remakes everything –
the body, the mind, the self and one’s sense of connection to the wider world

The album will be released on 18 September 2026 –
listen to Laymelli and pre-order the album here

Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Agnes Obel announces her new studio album – a follow-up to the widely acclaimed Myopia (2020). The Meaning of Flowers is woven together from different strands of thought and inspiration by one of the most curious minds in contemporary music today. Through its 12 tracks, Obel explores the heightened sense of interconnection with all living things she experienced during pregnancy and, among other themes, the significance of birth, growth and metamorphosis in the natural world. Her new music draws on a broad range of sources, from the poetry of Enheduanna (the world’s first named author) and the ideas of philosophers Hannah Arendt and Emanuele Coccia, to the Danish pop scene of the 80s and 90s.

Written, recorded, arranged and produced by Obel in her own studio in Berlin, The Meaning of Flowers features Agnes herself on vocals (some pitch-shifted), piano, keys, synths and samples. Guest musicians join her on violin, viola, cello, bass, lap steel, harmonium, flute, sax, percussion and backing vocals. The album comes out on Deutsche Grammophon – digitally, on CD and on vinyl – on 18 September 2026. As a taster, Laymelli is available to stream and download from 21 August.

Since recording Myopia, Obel has given birth to her first child. The Meaning of Flowers reflects the emotional impact of motherhood, Obel’s intellectual interest in the subject – notably Arendt’s concept of natality, “understood as the human capacity for new beginnings” – and the fact that the temporarily altered neuroplasticity of her brain took her thought and compositional processes in fresh directions.

“I wanted to see if I could get close to the feeling of a new beginning,” says Obel of the title track. “It shows itself in the experience of interconnectedness and a new expansive feeling of love that will never end. The point when the inner monologue becomes something interactive and expansive – beyond your own life – and opens your mind to a new and richer notion of life.”

Blood so Red and Gemini emerged as Obel was “playing around” with rhythms, piano and voice. Blood so Red came from her reading of Enheduanna’s hymns to Inanna – goddess of childbirth, love, sex, song and war – whose presence “made its way into the song, lifting up my own epiphanies on childbirth and the laws of the body and these experiences outside of language that link us across time and space”. Gemini and Laymelli too were inspired by Enheduanna, but also by Obel’s awareness of a complex universe “held together by the beauty and power of life and metamorphosis”. She drew on Coccia’s Life of Plants and Metamorphoses for the imagery of seeds and the life cycle of a butterfly.

There are other influences here too, including 70s movie scores in Don’t Look Down and Danish pop in Never Been: “In the 80s pop song world, to love was to be free and who you are unapologetically.” And Obel employs a joyful combination of timbres in Tangerine, the only instrumental track, as sax arpeggios join celesta and piano, in a “bubbly new wondrous friendship”.

The Meaning of Flowers is dedicated to Obel’s daughter: “she who has changed me and raised me and taught me so much – and I can feel so much more awaits to be learned”.

Agnes Obel – forthcoming tour dates:

22 Aug – KUNST!RASEN, Bonn · 23 Aug – Golden Leaves Festival, Darmstadt

26 Aug – Openluchttheater Caprera, Bloemendaal · 27/28 Aug – Amsterdamse Bostheater, Amstelveen

24 Sep – Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane · 26 Sep – Hamer Hall, Melbourne

27 Sep – Sydney Opera House · 29 Sep – New Zealand International Convention Centre, Auckland

Agnes Obel – The Meaning of Flowers

Books and poetry read while making the album

Fiction and non-fiction:

Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition, 1958

Banks, Jennifer, Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth, 2023

Bowen-Moore, Patricia, Hannah Arendt’s Philosophy of Natality, 1989

Butler, Octavia, Dawn, 1987