Bella Union

Many serendipitous moments have led to the creation of the musical project known as Complete Mountain Almanac. The first of these temporal alignments came at a chance meeting between two visionaries — Norwegian-born, Sweden-based singer and composer Rebekka Karijord and American-born, Italy-based poet, dancer, and multimedia artist Jessica Dessner

Jessica and Rebekka began collaborating, with Jessica providing poems and lyrics for Rebekka to compose music to. While Jessica is not a musician per se, as a dancer she naturally has a deep understanding of music as an artform. On top of that, she comes from a musical family: her twin younger brothers, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, are accomplished multi-instrumentalists, most known as part of indie rock stalwarts The National.

The album consists of twelve tracks, each named after a month of the year. Some have a meditative, almost hypnotic quality, using Jessica’s words as healing mantras. Sonically, the album cycles through folk, classical, chamber music and everything in between, creating a cocoon-like atmosphere that draws the listener into a stand-alone universe. It's a marriage of the inner and outer worlds, illness and rejuvenation, grief and joy.

Therein lies the idea of the almanac: having a guide to see you through each day, some kind of idea of what the future holds in uncertain times. But even as the project came together over the course of years, Rebekka and Jessica were always able to return to the core of their friendship to keep them on course, and the result is what might be one of the most important works of their respective careers.