Bjork: Medulla (2LP) [ONE LITTLE INDIAN]

Why you'll love it

This One Little Indian 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket with die-cut inner sleeves. Medúlla topped the charts in France and Iceland, sold more than a million copies and earned two Grammy nominations.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket
• Die-cut inner sleeves
• Pressed in the EU
• Cut at 45 RPM

About the album

After the snowflake intricacy of Vespertine, Björk decided the next record should be made of the thing she always carries with her. Medúlla, named for the Latin word for marrow, is built almost entirely from human voices: choirs, beatboxers, throat singers and Björk herself, stacked and looped into beats, bass lines and weather. She started work on it in 2002, when it was known as The Lake Album, and kept going while eight months pregnant, adding her own drumming to the arrangements.

"Who Is It (Carry My Joy On The Left Carry My Pain On The Right)" turns a choir into a pop single, "Triumph Of A Heart" is a joyous, bouncing finale, and "Oceania" is the song she sang at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympics. "Vökuró" and "Öll Birtan" bring things back home to Icelandic, while "Where Is The Line" and "Desired Constellation" lean toward the strange and beautiful. Much of the album looks back on her life at 17 and 18: love, family and friends.

She played no tour for it at all, reasoning the songs would be too hard to stage live. Hard to argue with a woman who'd need to pack a choir in her hand luggage.

Also at Kops: more Björk on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On One Little Indian (cat# TPLP358), the 2004 album.