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Bjork on 'Medulla'

added 25 August 2004 at 10.59

The icelandic pop priestess' latest ephemeral masterpiece is out next week. Hear track-by-track commentary on the stirring, soaring and sinister 'Medulla' from Bjork herself, plus hear the album in full, right here.

Click here to hear 'Medulla' in full

'The Pleasure Is All Mine'
"This song for me is really about the sensuality of just jumping in that pool again. Just you and the music." [listen]

'Show Me Forgiveness'
"I always knew that one song had to be just one voice and that's it. And the uncomfortableness of that too, like when you're a ta party and someone gets up to do a speech." [listen]

'Where Is The Line?'
"I kept joking with my mates, saying I really wanted to do a headbanging choir song and once that was achieved I need a beat to match it. It was fun. It reminds me of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' actually..." [listen]

'Vokuro'
"It means, kind of, being awake. It's basically a lullabye. It's the one song on the album that's not by me, it's by an Icelandic lady who's a composer. She's 80 years old now." [listen]

'Oll Birtan'
"I was so shy, I wouldn't even sing in a language, I would use my own gibberish language. So a lot of people probably think I'm singing in Icelandic but it's not, it's gibberish." [listen]

'Who Is It'
"This song is probably quite physical. It's the first song I wrote when I was feeling quite strong again." [listen]

'Submarine'
"My submarine behaviour is probably... the part of me that writes songs had maybe gone dormant. This song is maybe time to wake it up." [listen]

'Desired Constellation'
"When he remixed me, he took my voice and made this rhythm out of that. And he didn't tell me just in case - if I didn't like it - he could use it with another singer..." [listen]

'Oceania'
"I kind of kept it 'til last 'cos I wanted to do it specially for the olympics. It wasn't until the last day, in the mixing, that I thought 'I need sirens, like in Greek mythology'." [listen]

'Sonnets/Unrealities XI'
"It's like a chunk of poems and this is just one of them. I think it's him [lyricist E.E Cummings] taking the piss out of himself, when you make up things that scare you." [listen]

'Ancestors'
"When I was naming the record I tried to work out what was missing - and maybe it was the pagan element, the element of this record that is going back to the roots, before time or civilisation..." [listen]

'Mouth's Cradle'
"I just went into the forest and sat with a dictaphone and... just improvised. I didn't really think so much about it. Normally I would clean up the lyric but this time I decided to just leave it as it is." [listen]

'Mivikudags'
"I guess this is similar, for me, to 'Oll Birton'. It's kind of like a little interlude that shows where the whole thing came from." [listen]

'Triumph of A Heart'
"This lyric is probably about just celebrating the body; cells doing rollercoaster rides up and down your body, in the blood and the lungs. Just singing." [listen]

www.bjork.com

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