Abba Records New Songs for First Time Since 1982 Split

Abba has written and recorded new music together for the first time since the Swedish pop group split in 1982.

In an announcement posted on the official Abba Instagram page, the four-piece group — Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus — said it had recorded two new songs for a tour featuring digital versions of themselves. The hologram tour, which was announced in October 2016, is a partnership with the “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller; no dates have been announced yet. The statement also mentioned a television special scheduled to air in December, which will feature one of the new tracks, “I Still Have Faith in You.”

“The decision to go ahead with the exciting Abba avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence,” the group wrote. “We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did.” The group said returning to the studio felt “like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!”

Abba, which was made up of two married couples, Fältskog and Ulvaeus, and Lyngstad and Andersson, broke up after both pairs had divorced. The group won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden in 1974, and released eight studio albums between 1973 and 1981. It was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010; Lyngstad and Andersson attended the ceremony, but did not perform.

The group has not reunited for any performances since the split, except for at a private party in 2016, although all four members did not actually sing together there.