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Employing an Insuit throat singer, human trombonist and pop-thrashers Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Medulla was never going to be your usual popsical affair, with almost all the noises on the album coming from the human voice in all its guises.
Robert Wyatt, Icelandic and London-based ... Read review
Normally, an artist such as Bjork with a mass audience across the globe steadily eases off ... more
as the back-catalogue starts to grow. However, Medulla, the fifth proper studio album from Bjork is without a doubt the most challenging collection of music she ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Normally, an artist such as Bjork with a mass audience across the globe steadily eases off ... more
as the back-catalogue starts to grow. However,Medulla, the fifth proper studio album from Bjork is without a doubt the most challenging collection of music she h...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Normally, an artist such as Bjork with a mass audience across the globe steadily eases off ... more
as the back-catalogue starts to grow. However,Medulla, the fifth proper studio album from Bjork is without a doubt the most challenging collection of music she h...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Bjorkishness taken a step further Disadvantages: Bjorkishness taken a step further!
...Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Medulla was never going to be your usual popsical affair, with almost all the noises on the album coming from the human voice in all its guises.
Robert Wyatt, Icelandic and London-based gospel choirs add to the eclectic mix.
After much consideration I decided this is not an album to share. Turn off the lights, imagine its just you in the world, look at the stars and Medulla will soundtrack ... ...of sleep.
Big Time Sensuality or that song where she says “shhhh” a lot this isn’t.
Listening to the album the songs slip and slide in and out of each other as you enter the realms of Morpheus is the best way of enjoying the eccentric requiem of it all.
The sleeve is so dark I can’t make out the song titles or lyrics anyway so perhaps this is as well. I can imagine the record company listening to it for ... more
Bjork….Well we all know what we are going to get from a new album from the former Sugarcubes singer don’t we…weird pop with quirky vocals like a chattery fax machine.
There will be ethereal goings on a plenty, Icelandic mutterings about sadness in the spring and some damn good pop tunes in there somewhere, won’t there?
It will all be backed by a meaty beat for the goatee-clad clubbers, (no not seal clubbers!)
Well Bjork - who has become a noun, verb adjective, adverb and even a language of late, Bjrok-ish lessons anyone? - seems to have provided all the former (weirds) and none of the latter (beards) as she takes us inside her ambient sleepy pixie world and shows us the beautiful scenery within.
Employing an Insuit throat singer, human trombonist and pop-thrashers Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Medulla was never going to be your usual popsical affair, with almost all the noises on the album coming from the human voice in all its guises.
Robert Wyatt, Icelandic and London-based gospel choirs add to the eclectic mix.
After much consideration I decided this is not an album to share. Turn off the lights, imagine its just you in the world, look at the stars and Medulla will soundtrack you through the night, as you slumber in and out of sleep.
Big Time Sensuality or that song where she says “shhhh” a lot this isn’t.
Listening to the album the songs slip and slide in and out of each other as you enter the realms of Morpheus is the best way of enjoying the eccentric requiem of it all.
The sleeve is so dark I can’t make out the song titles or lyrics anyway so perhaps this is as well. I can imagine the record company listening to it for the first time. “I can’t hear a single here….I can’t even hear a song!”
I still can’t decide if it is a masterpiece of ambience and simple electronica or just some way of filling in the time, perhaps that’s what she wants.
The good news is the ‘fax machine’ is working but creating soundscapes rather than pop songs and I am unsure if that is what Bjork should be about.
Some may find it Bjor(k)ing others Bj-eautiful....
Advantages: SACD version bought, Limited Edition Disadvantages: cardboard cover
...add-on to vespertine (sometimes i think she went with the same layout of that album and ran with the same format with medulla) but if this is gonna be your first venture into the world of Bjork, then buy two of hers, Medulla being one and the other being Homogenic ...
fastfast 25.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Medulla - Bjork
Advantages: Original, Sounds are Beautiful, Rare to find in an Artist who'll open up & Push the Music Industry Limits & then release it! Thank U! Disadvantages: 2 years of waiting for a sweet drop & only 45 mins but she is So Worth it
...quality are still present in Medulla but to then produce the music by vocals, this album over flows with amazing sounds and so professional that you hardly notice the bass and beats are from the mouth, this takes pure talent and guts! but she has done this so well there is nothing to complain about as this album is perfectly done & so unique there is nothing like it on the shelves. To those who are unconvinced: grab a good set of headphones, grab ... ...you into her music, appreciate her voice & all the effort/time put into each section, then you will realise this is a master piece in its own catagory.
For those who likes pop, commercial or what everyone else likes or radio stations, music tv what are you doing even looking or commenting on Bjork? you have no taste or any idea to rate her!
I am not saying this is the best album ever, as they all are, this album adds to her chapter, there are a ...
Okyar 20.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Medulla - Bjork
Advantages: Exciting Disadvantages: Cant help wishing it was longer
...my house. I put Medulla on and was pottering aorund slightly but before the end of the first track I was sitting on my floor in front of the speakers and just listening.
This an acapella album, some of the songs are 'normal' acapella but on the most part the songs are a dense mass of layers and layers of vocal samples. Medulla is Latin and is used in medicine to mean marrow, the essence of things. We all have a voice so this is an album that could ... ...this is a great album, I sing the songs in my head all the time. For an experiemental concept album it is catchy and addictive. At the end I am dropped back to the floor by the cut-short souding Triumph of a Heart and have to skip back to hear whatever my favourite song is at that time. Initially Desired Constellation was a favourite but now the rumbling Submarine and the swinging Mouth's Cradle are songs I cant resist. I have to admit that on the ...
rierie 22.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Medulla - Bjork
Advantages: Visionary sounds, great vocals Disadvantages: Some of the tracks are a bit too 'far out'
I have been a fan of Bjork sine she first emerged onto the scene in the early nineties and I was a young boy of 19. Since then I have enjoyed the evolution of her sound, moving from electronica to a more experimental creatve sound.
This album however is even too experimental for me! The tracks are just not as good as previous albums 'Debut', 'Post' or 'Homogenic'. Tihs pains me to say this, as Bjork is an artist who I have great admiration for, ... ...remake of the Exorcist, than a Bjork album. I was further irritated by the tracklisting being printed in black, on a BLACK background - confusing - tell me about it. If you are looking for 'Venus As a Boy' forget it, these tracks are so far removed from that earlier music that I can now understand why Bjork is not the commercially succesful any more. Highlights (the few), were 'Who Is It', an up tempo catchy number which reminded me of Bjork earlier ...
mark9874 02.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Medulla - Bjork
Originality
Lyrics
Quality and consistency...
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Reviews which might be of interest for "Medulla - Bjork"
Advantages: Bjork plus Jazz and Swing and Fun Disadvantages: Some might dislike the fact it's almost entirely sung in Icelandic
, with Bella Simmamaer sounding similar in tone to The Ballard of Mackie the Knife. Yes, there is the occasional sense of music hall behind the music. It's sort of sophisticated and yet entirely down to Earth.
Basically, Gling-Gló is just extravagantly good fun to listen to. It's not party music exactly but it's hard to keep parts of your body still as you fall under its spell. And I think that's it really: Gling-Gló is familiar and recognisable and yet somehow new. Despite being music I might not necessarily normally listen to I find myself immediately enthralled.
It makes you wonder what else Bjork is capable of. Though her vocals power the music this is not like her vocal-work album Medulla. Rather you feel that because she is allowing herself to relax she is all the more effective. If Bjork was here singing as the Bjork we know ...
Advantages: Quintessential Bjork! Disadvantages: An acquired taste
and new.
To some tastes, songs may merge into a oneness. That, for me, is not necessarily such a bad thing. I was tempted to think, when I first listened to the album, that Bjork has peaked with this masterwork and that future albums would be an inevitable disappointment. 2004's "Medulla" proved that to be only partly true. Her newest material shines in a new way, capturing some of the majesty of "Vespertine" and with some new strange more gems of its own, but never quite reaching that summit again.
For any doubters, I'd advise picking up a copy of this album on Ebay, and listening with an open mind.
"Vespertine" : quintessential Bjork in all her peculiar beauty! ...
The Icelandic princess of pop weirdness follows up 2001's 'Vespertine' with what may be her most avant-garde release to date. 'Medulla', her fifth studio album, features almost no instruments at all - practically every sound on it is made by the human voice. Includes vocal contributions from Mike Patton, Robert Wyatt, and two full choirs, as well as beats by "human beatbox" Rahzel and post-production work by Matmos and LFO's Mark Bell.
Titles on disc 1
1.
Pleasure Is All Mine
2.
Show Me Forgiveness
3.
Where Is The Line
4.
Vokuro
5.
Oll Birtan
6.
Who Is It (Carry My Joy On The Left Carry My Pain On The Rig
7.
Submarine
8.
Desired Constellation
9.
Oceania
10.
Sonnets/Unrealities XI
11.
Ancestors
12.
Mouth's Cradle
13.
Midvikudags
14.
Triumph Of A Heart
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25/09/2004
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