1.12.04

Bjork - Medulla - One Little Indian TPLP358CD

This is wonderful. It has choirs, voices as musical instruments, double basses like growling, hungry bears, and, above all, Bjork’s own ice-clear voice. There’s nothing here that would make a pop or rock song in the normal sense, just sound-scapes and rhythms mostly constructed without any musical instruments at all. One or two tracks have something approaching a melody, which is welcome, but they are all dramatic and arresting.

What’s it all about? Hard to say. Certainly some of the tracks are about relationships but many are sung in what I take to be Icelandic so I can't tell. The lyrics are printed on the sleeve notes but they’re illegible so perhaps they don’t matter. And the tracks are only identified by numbers so there‘s no help there. Being in almost complete ignorance about what Bjork’s banging on about has in no way spoilt my enjoyment.

1 comment:

Richard Lehnert said...

I've just noticed that sticking it in a computer does reveal a track listing, as might a fancy cd player. Some of the tracks have English titles but I'm not much the wiser. Don't think it matters.