Record of the day: Björk, "Medùlla"

Record of the day: Björk, “Medùlla”

Bjork
“Medùlla” (Cd Polydor/One little Indian 9867591)

«I know what can annoy me: the fact that I am naturally artificial».
This phrase by Maurice Ravel could very well be uttered by Björk, the extraordinary Icelandic artist who enjoys confounding the expectations of her admirers by changing musical direction with each new record release. In times like the present, where the only thing that seems to count for many listeners is an enjoyment that passes exclusively through the digestive system, Björk’s records never cease to remind us that to fully enjoy music there is also another organ, equally important: the brain.

It seemed impossible to make an album even more beautiful than the previous “Vespertine”, yet with “Medùlla” Björk not only succeeds in her aim, but has lightly jumped over the obstacle she had self-imposed at the beginning of the project, namely making an entire album exclusively with the aid of human voices; the idea in itself is not particularly original, so the novelty and freshness of the final result appear doubly relevant.

Björk does not look at the musical projects of Take 6 or Bobby McFerrin, but rather at works with a much more experimental edge such as Stockhausen’s “Stimmung” and Glass’s “Music for Voices”; emotion and rationality go hand in hand in this album just as solo voice melodies alternate with passages of stratified polyphony (always perfectly organized, of luminous transparency), breaths, throat and tracheal sounds marry (in particular in the final “Triumph of a Heart”) with insistent rhythms derived from techno (created together with the magnificent «vocal drummers» Rahzel and Dokaka); even the use of a Finnish folk choir has nothing trivially illustrative and is purified of any dross of world music to the point of transforming the voices into pure essence; appearances by illustrious guests such as Robert Wyatt and Mike Patton complete the picture.

Like all of this artist’s records, “Medùlla” also needs several listens to be able to grasp its codes; discovering its hidden treasures requires attention and patience, perhaps for this reason, upon its release, the album aroused the usual irritated reactions from supporters of musical fast-food and accusations of “intellectual” coldness from the indomitable probers of the Ars Poetica of some of our songwriters (so much the worse for them).

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.