Last week Björk announced her ninth album, Vulnicura, wouldn't be released until March, but that plan was scrapped when Vulincuna leaked online over the weekend.

Sound familiar?

Bjork decided to make lemonade out of lemons and just released the nine-track album on iTunes, two months earlier than planned.

The Icelandic pop star followed the surprise release with a lengthy statement on her website, expressing gratitude to her supporters and giving insight into the heartbreak than inspired the album's creation:

i am so grateful you are still interested in my work !!

i appreciate every little bit !!!

i wanted to tell you the tale of making of this album

i guess i found in my lap one year into writing it a complete heartbreak album . kinda surprised how thoroughly i had documented this in pretty much accurate emotional chronology .... like 3 songs before a break up and three after . so the anthropologist in me sneaked in and i decided to share them as such . first i was worried it would be too self indulgent but then i felt it might make it even more universal . and hopefully the songs could be a help , a crutch to others and prove how biological this process is : the wound and the healing of the wound . psychologically and physically . it has a stubborn clock attached to it .

there is a way out

and then a magic thing happened to me : as i lost one thing something else entered . alejandro contacted me late summer 2013 and was interested in working with me . it was perfect timing . to make beats to the songs would have taken me 3 years ( like on vespertine ) but this enchanted Arca would visit me repeatedly and only few months later we had a whole album !!! it is one of the most enjoyable collaboration i have had !

i then went ahead and wrote string and choir arrangements and recorded them in iceland

and whom else to lure into singing with me my worship-of-love-song "atom dance " than my goddess of love : antony ?

towards the end of the album i started looking around for a mixing engineer and was introduced by a mutual friend of ours , robin carolan to the haxan cloak . he mixed the album and also made a beat for one half of "family" . together with chris elms the engineer we kinda formed a band during the mixing process and this is the album we made !!!

i do hope you enjoy it

i would like to thank this overqualified little team ( where roles often blurred )

. i also would like to thank robin , his generous approvals gave me more courage to complete this as is .

and my group of songswapping / dj friends : the right tune can truly cure : ta for those sonic ointments

but most of all i would like to thank my team : james merry , derek birkett and emma birkett . rosemary and elisa . this album could not have been done without you

Vulnicura is available now on iTunes.