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Describing this album in any detail without sounding idiotic is very difficult.
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Describing this album in any detail without sounding idiotic is very difficult.
Bjork’s sixth studio album is not, as rumours suggested beforehand, a radical “fuck all instruments” project or a difficult, commercial suicide album. In fact I think it’s a very logical step from her last work, 2001’s “Vespertine”. Don’t ask me why, because I can’t explain!
On listening to “Medulla” you will discover a forty five minute world of multi layered voices, some beats and occasional electronica, the use of which brings an element of normality into the proceedings. Song structures are as melodic and hypnotizing as usual, albeit heavy on the ‘vocal accent’. And this must be a terrible prospect for those listeners who are fed up with Bjork’s voice; for she has a strange vocal style to say the least. But bear with “Medulla”, because it is a real surprise, as it is really, really good. After all, a vocal based album (of all things), created by someone who can’t really sing, a daring project by someone who is already perceived as “wacky” and “offbeat”; you couldn’t dream up anything worse could you?
Now let’s turn to the actual music. You certainly get a full range of voices for your money here. “Medulla” finds Bjork’s voice amongst other things, deformed, stretched, nasal, unbelievably deep, funny; well, anything you can imagine really. As well as Bjork, lots of other people seem to have contributed, as the entire “catalogue of human sounds” is represented here. Men, women and children, choirs, throat singing, nose opera, all sorts of weird stuff. And, if you have the entire gamut of human sounds, you normally get the entire gamut of human emotion represented. Beautiful calm, courtesy of a Russian choir chanting a religious theme, scary sounds, funny moments, (most notable on the track “Triumph of a Heart”), and sometimes primal noises. The song “Ancestors” is brilliantly sharp, like a couple unsuccessfully trying out foreplay around the time of the Old Stone Age; (nothing changing there then).
Actually describing this album in any detail without sounding idiotic is very difficult as you’ve probably worked out by now. I don’t really think people can seriously review something as “out of the box” as “Medulla”. But before I go and recover my sanity, I do have to mention the track “Submarine”, where Bjork gives much deserved floor space to that most original and delicate singer, Robert Wyatt. That’s one of the best reasons to listen to this album. Another reason is so you can wonder just precisely where she can go from here. Doubtless, her next project will be exciting. I have a dream that the next time we hear something new from her, we’ll hear Holger Czuckay’s Dictaphone in the background…………
Words : Paul Overdijk
Illustration : Paul Overdijk