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Medulla
M-Logo
Released August 30, 2004
(see release history)
Recorded 2001-May 2004
Length 45:40
Producers Björk
Mark Bell
Label
One Little Indian Records
Studio album discography
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(2001)

Medulla

(2004)

Volta

(2007)

From Medúlla
  1. "Oceania" (Promotional single)
    Released: August 2004
  2. "Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right)"
    Released: October 18, 2004
  3. "Triumph of a Heart"
    Released: February 28, 2005

Medúlla is the sixth studio album by Björk, released on August 30, 2004. The album's sounds are almost completely made up from the human voice, featuring but not limited to beatboxers Rahzel and Dokaka, tuvan throat singer Tanya Tagaq and choirs from London and Iceland.

Backgrounder[]

The album is about voices. I want to get away from instruments and electronics, which was the world of my last album, 'Vespertine.' I want to see what can be done with the entire emotional range of the human voice - a single voice, a chorus, trained voices, pop voices, folk voices, strange voices. not just melodies but everything else, every noise that a throat makes.[1][2]

Björk began working on her fifth studio album in 2002, being known as The Lake Album at the time.[3] In an interview with The New Yorker magazine, she explained that she wanted to get away from the world of instruments and electronics, which was present on her previous album, Vespertine (2001). She then elaborated that it was "very introverted" and avoided eye contact.[2] When she was finishing Vespertine, Björk knew she wanted to make a vocal album, and since her teenage years she knew that one day she would. For her, the majority of the album is connected to the time when she was seventeen to eighteen years old, focusing on aspects of life, love, family and friends. She commented that was thinking about how she used to live her life, how carefree she was, and how others around her affected the way she thought, saying it is shown clearly at the core of Medúlla.[4]

Björk struggled to find a title for the album. She provisionally named it "Ink" because she wanted a title that represents "the 5,000 year old blood that is in all of us; an ancient spirit that’s passionate and dark, a spirit that survives." It was the artist Gabriela Fridriksdóttir who suggested the name Medúlla to her:

I was going to call the album ‘Ink’, because I wanted it to be like that black, 5,000 year-old blood that’s inside us all; an ancient spirit that’s passionate and dark, a spirit that survives. Something in me wanted to leave out civilisation, to rewind to before it all happened and work out, ‘Where is the human soul? What if we do without civilisation and religion and patriotism, without the stuff that has gone wrong?’ When I first moved to New York there was room for immigrants and eccentrics and whoever, then suddenly it became the most scarily patriotic place on earth. Then I got drunk – surprise! - with my artist friend Gabriela and she came up with the title Medúlla. It basically means ‘marrow’ in medical language, in Latin. Not just you’re bone marrow, but marrow in the kidneys and marrow in your hair, too. It’s about getting to the essence of something. And with this album being all vocals, that made sense.

Additionally, Björk commented that the accent on the letter "u" was intended to make the word cuter with a pun on the Icelandic word "dúlla": "We thought it was funny, then it became mysterious."[5]

Singles[]

Track listing[]

All songs written and composed by Björk, except where noted. 

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Pleasure Is All Mine"    3:26
2. "Show Me Forgiveness"    1:23
3. "Where Is the Line"    4:41
4. "Vökuró"  Jórunn Viðar, Jakobína Sigurðardóttir 3:14
5. "Öll Birtan"    1:52
6. "Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right)"    3:57
7. "Submarine"    3:13
8. "Desired Constellation"  Björk, Olivier Alary 4:55
9. "Oceania"  Björk, Sjón 3:24
10. "Sonnets/Unrealities XI"  Björk, E. E. Cummings 1:59
11. "Ancestors"  Björk, Tagaq 4:08
12. "Mouth's Cradle"    4:00
13. "Miðvikudags"    1:24
14. "Triumph of a Heart"    4:04
Total length:
45:40
Japanese/iTunes bonus track
No. TitleWriter(s) Length
15. "Komið" (Japan bonus track)Björk 2:02
Total length:
47:41

Trivia[]

  • The song "Mouth's Cradle" is about breastfeeding.
  • "Who Is It" was originally written at the end of Vespertine, performed with a Inuit choir at that album's tour, but reworked for Medúlla.
  • The song title "Öll Birtan" is complete gibberish. Its title roughly translates into English as "all the light."

References[]

  1. bjork.com - Medúlla
  2. 2.0 2.1 Ross, Alex (9 August 2004). "Björk's Saga". The New Yorker.
  3. "New Bjork". 11 March 2003. NME.
  4. "Bjork's Medulla: the 'blood and meat' of music?". Academia.edu. pp. 21–27.
  5. Morgunblaðsins, Tímarit (22 August 2004). "Dýpstu Bjarkar rætur". Morgunblaðið (in Icelandic).
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