Björk – Medúlla

• Medulla Oblongata: the lowest part of the brainstem, responsible for transmitting signals between the brain and spinal cord. Synonyms: small brain, reptilian brain. We hold it accountable for our most primal impulses.
• Medulla Spinalis: a synonym for the spinal cord, an essential part of the central nervous system that conducts nerve impulses to and from the brain.
• Medulla Ossea: bone marrow, a fatty, dark red tissue filling the cavities of bones. A hematopoietic organ.
• Medulla: a general medical term denoting the innermost, deepest essence of any plant or animal structure.

Recently, I was exchanging impressions with a friend about Björk’s album Medúlla when he suddenly said: “I use Björk as a filter to sift through people. They either like her or reject her, and I prefer to connect with those who do.”

Over time, it seems an international Björk brotherhood has formed—some sort of sect that uses her music as a source of inspiration, a means of communication, brain-fixing, emotional purification, and everything else that’s been in short supply in our media-drenched, medusa-like daily lives. Even though I’ve long belonged to this brotherhood, I have enough sense not to expect every one of her albums to devastate me with beauty the way Homogenic and Vespertine did—because it’s simply not possible to easily surpass a bar set that high, even if you’re the one who put it there.

That’s why, when I got my hands on Medúlla, I hastily decided that this time, I wouldn’t share my impressions with others. I’d just load the album into my playlist, listen to it for a day or two until I got bored, then toss it aside with the rest. The important and interesting details—the ones I’d normally discuss over coffee with friends—I could notice without even playing the music. All I had to do was look at the album cover.

• Detail number one: Björk isn’t singing alone.
• Detail number two: with the names listed on the cover, this album must be, or almost be, a cappella.

Tanya Tagaq Gillis and her Inuit throat singing. Rahzel—the human percussion machine. Mike Patton… plus an imposing choir, or rather, choirs—an Icelandic one, a British one… also, Robert Wyatt—the Soft Machine founder who has been paralyzed from the waist down since 1973. And Japan’s a cappella master, Dokaka. Not to mention Björk’s usual collaborators—the wizards of effects, Mark Bell, Matmos, and Mark “Spike” Stent.

Singing a cappella in this technology-fetishizing musical world is interesting in itself, but it’s not an unprecedented novelty. Off the top of my head, I think of Voice by Maja Ratkje from 2002. I also recall our own atonal polyphonies, as well as some who’ve experimented with them: Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush… not without a dose of frustration, of course, but that’s another topic. The point is, how could Björk possibly claim innovation here? Perhaps only in terms of extravagance.

And yet, the almost prayerful opening (“Pleasure Is All Mine” and “Show Me Forgiveness”) blends Tanya Tagaq’s Inuit singing with Rahzel’s delicate beats and angelic choirs in such a way that it makes you forget all criticism. You just surrender to the almost physical sensation of a slow walk along a misty canal in Venice… Once again, synesthesia, relaxation, the dissolution of forms. Once again, subjectivity and the inability—or rather, the loss of desire—to claim any certainty.

If one could say, “This is too experimental to be pop,” then one could just as easily say the opposite: “Too pop to be experimental!” Indeed, “Who Is It” and especially “Triumph of a Heart” are full-on pop songs in the spirit of Björk’s most mischievous period. Even the dark “Where Is the Line” sounds dirty and urban before the funky beat, the whistling, Patton’s growling, and Rahzel—the human beatbox, the human steam hammer (or rather, the human machine gun)—unexpectedly give way to the almost liturgical chants of “Vökuró” and “Öll Birtan” (“Vigil” and “All the Lights” in Icelandic).

Among so many strange voices gathered together, how does Björk’s own distinctive vocal sound? Is it really that unique? I’ve heard truly maddening female vocals, and I’m not talking about bel canto or extreme vocal experimentation like Diamanda Galás, but simply that psychotropic effect that the voices of Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) or Nico have on me—and not just on me. Compared to them, isn’t Björk sometimes boring? Let’s be honest—sometimes she’s downright unbearable. If only she were at least a sex symbol like the two aforementioned! Or maybe… she simply doesn’t want to be.

If she doesn’t seek approval and doesn’t flirt with the media, then what was the insufferable Björk doing with her “Oceania” under the “all the lights” of the Athens Olympics opening ceremony? Beyoncé could have been there instead! How did she manage to hypnotize even the Medusa Media and make it take her seriously?

And yet, truth is truth—Björk is a character. Why would she need media approval when she knows better than anyone how to neurotransmit an orgasm? What is this? Dirty tricks? Another exquisitely sophisticated voodoo spell, an emotional shakedown of the confused brains of early 21st-century music consumers? The search for archetypal sounds seems to be becoming an increasingly explicit goal—one for which Björk doesn’t hesitate to use temple acoustics or even dig through ancestral bones. Doesn’t the album’s climax, “Ancestors”, confirm this?

What is she aiming for? Tanya Tagaq’s primal singing—more like breathing—is beyond all possible human ways of expressing anything with the voice. It’s as if someone is gasping in a mystical asthma attack or trying to hyperventilate into unconsciousness. There’s no exchange of emotions. No communication. Just a sinister ritual.

Which is immediately followed by Björk’s escape from the sacred into the sensual and fleshy “Mouth’s Cradle”. The sound of kisses is too playful to leave us in our fears, yet too enigmatic to allow for casual listening.

To some, Medúlla may seem too insincere and deliberately unsettling—lacking the energy of Björk’s former chaos and thus bordering on perversion in its attempt to say something to someone.

Or quite the opposite: too chaotic and searching to be accused of any intent to communicate. The fact that it was recorded in 18 different locations across the planet—including New York, Iceland, Venice, and the Canary Islands—with artists who are each renegades in their own right, almost provokes critics to seek disorder in Medúlla.

Björk is doing whatever she wants now, that’s clear. Only her zombified fans will endure the torment. She may appear vulnerable, but she isn’t.

Perhaps because of these suspicions of possession—or perhaps due to the “oceanic” metaphor (“Submarine” and “Oceania”), my fear deepened as I listened, constantly associating Medúlla with Lovecraft’s Dagon. Incidentally, one piece, “Sonnets / Unrealities XI”, references a poem by E. E. Cummings.

What does it matter? A plunge is a plunge. The weight of matter—or something else—does it make a difference? We’re all free to explore the infinite shell of our own unfreedom… P.S. Some saw Vespertine as Björk’s swan song—perhaps because of that swan part of her outfit. Now, some see Medúlla as overacting. So what? We, the happy victims of Björk, see only a continuation of the love story—just another transformation of a body in love, another attempt to break free from it.

Reviewed by Rayna Markova, originally published in Bulgarian in 2004.