Abstract

In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla,
made almost exclusively with human voices. After outlining what I have termed ‘the
elastic self’, which recognises both personal and external agency, this dissertation first
examines how Björk uses technologies of the studio, using Actor Network Theory. Often
mechanical manipulation is an attempt to depict powerlessness, whilst her employment of
beatboxers’ interplay with technology is to express the body. I then perform an organicist
motivic analysis of the album, studying motives used in different songs and links made
across the musical foreground and background and the resulting unity. Through the
concept of the rhizome and Actor Network Theory, I expand my analysis of motivic unity
outside of the album, suggesting that the album can also be read as a network or as
‘elastic’. This study will attempt to understand how Björk’s idea of the self and body were
transferred to the musical work.

Introduction

Medúlla (2004), whose title means “the inner region of an organ or tissue” (Oxford
Dictionaries 2014a) is the fifth solo album by the Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk
Guðmundsdóttir (born 21 November 1965 in Reykjavík). In this essay I explore not only
how Björk conceptualised and created Medúlla but how such processes are thematically
intertwined in the album with the theme of motherhood.
In Chapter One I present an introduction to Björk’s work and surrounding
scholarship, before focusing on Medúlla. The themes of sexual and maternal giving in
Medúlla strongly suggest that Björk is conceiving selfhood and subjectivity in a new way, a
conceptualisation I have termed ‘the elastic self’ as it combines passivity and agency. In
opposition to Western atomised models expressed in singer-songwriter traditions (Dibben
2006), which view the self as a whole, concepts of the elastic self destabilise the notion of a
bounded and discrete individual. I use these opposing models of selfhood as theoretical
tools for looking in the rest of the essay at Björk’s conception of the album.
In Chapter Two I focus on the voice and especially its relationship to technology in
Medúlla. After introducing models for studying the voice, I use Actor Network Theory
[ANT] to analyse how Björk used technology to depict powerlessness. Björk’s use of
beatboxers on Medúlla also highlights issues of agency, as the performers are emulating
electronic beats, which I analyse with ANT and theories of imitation. Two songs from the
album, ‘Where Is The Line’ and ‘Mouth’s Cradle’, are analysed to show the complex
notions of the voice that arise even in individual songs.
In Chapter Three I present a motivic analysis of Medúlla, illuminating how far Björk
as composer intended the album to embody an organic unity. This expands the work of
Victoria Malawey who, as well as providing transcriptions for the album, has analysed
harmonic stasis and oscillation and temporal effects. As Malawey was reluctant to discuss
“pitch aspects” (Malawey 2007, 13) and excludes analysis outside individual songs, I
supplement her work through a motivic organicist analysis, expanding and adapting
organicist principles for my study by probing links between the “composer’s” voice (Cone
1974) and the “grain” of the voice (Barthes 1977).
In Chapter Four I use the concept of the ‘elastic self’ to interpret Björk’s use of
motives that can be found both inside and outside Medúlla. ANT provides a starting point
for studying the remixes of two songs, ‘Who Is It’ and ‘Desired Constellation’, in which
links are created between mixes without a rooting to the album as a definitive urtext. These
rhizomic connections suggest that the album should be viewed as one part of a network, and
as such, is not self-contained. This, I argue, is representative of Björk’s conceptions of the
self as elastic. Both organicist aesthetics and technology play key roles in this complex
conception of selfhood, contributing to scholarly conceptions of subjectivity in popular
music.

Chapter One: Concepts

Björk is probably best known “for her unique music, bizarre fashion sense and
quirky behavior” (Dibben 2009a, 1). Nonetheless, she is also one of the most critically
successful musicians of recent decades, with an eclectic back-catalogue. Her albums have
ranged from Icelandic jazz (Gling Gló [1990]), to baroque-electronica (Homogenic [1997])
and an album partially released as a series of apps (Biophilia [2011]). Alongside these
distinctive records, Björk has collaborated with respected English composer John Tavener
(Prayer For The Heart [2004]) and has received an Academy Award Nomination for Best
Original Song (Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark [2000]). Though classically trained
from an early age, Björk spent many of her formative years in the punk bands Tappi
Tíkarrass and Kukl, and since the 1980s she has sung, produced and composed albums that

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have traversed the boundaries of popular and avant-garde. This essay draws on the wide
acclaim and discussion Björk has attracted from both music journalists and academics.
Through her albums, Björk employs composition as a means of engaging with
social, musical and technological issues. As a result, scholars have dealt with these areas
extensively. Socially, Nicola Dibben has explored issues of subjectivity (2006) and
Icelandic nationalism (2009a and 2009b), the latter being developed by Peter Webb and
John Lynch in their article on Björk’s concept of utopia and globalisation (2010). Other
scholars, including Andrew Robbie (2007) and Steven Shaviro (2002), have focused on
technology, especially on Björk as a ‘cyborg’ in light of the utopian visions of Donna
Haraway. Charity Marsh and Melissa West, in an attempt to dismantle the
“Nature/Technology Binary Opposition” (2003) have discussed Björk and Madonna’s
relationship with electronic music. Similarly, in 2013 Mathias Bonde Korsgaard discussed
the interactive music videos in Biophilia. Malawey has used musical analysis in her doctoral
thesis on Medúlla (2007), focusing on processes of musical emergence (2011) as well as
harmonic stasis and oscillation (2010).1 Yet, little of this work discusses the unified nature
of Björk’s albums with most inquiries directed to specific songs or videos. This essay
unpicks and connects these social, technological and musical strands through a detailed
analysis of Björk’s Medúlla.
The following table is a track list for Medúlla, with the abbreviations I use
throughout the essay.
Table 1: Track list for Medúlla (2004)
Song number Song Name (all lyrics and music Abbreviation
by Björk except where specified)
1 ‘Pleasure Is All Mine’ ‘PIAM’
2 ‘Show Me Forgiveness’ ‘SMF’
3 ‘Where Is The Line’ ‘WITL’
4 ‘Vökuró’ (‘Vigil’) (lyrics by ‘Vökuro’
Jakobína Sigurðardóttir, composed
by Jórunn Viðar)

5 ‘Öll Birtan’ (‘All The Brightness’) ‘ÖB’

                                                                                                               
1
The two later articles are condensations of her thesis (2007).

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6 ‘Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the ‘WIT’
Left, Carry my Pain on the Right)’

7 ‘Submarine’ ‘Submarine’

8 ‘Desired Constellations’ ‘DC’

9 ‘Oceania’ (lyrics by Sjón) ‘Oceania’

10 ‘Sonnets/Unrealities XI’ (lyrics from ‘S/U’

a poem by ee cummings)

11 ‘Ancestors’ ‘Ancestors’

12 ‘Mouth’s Cradle’ ‘MC’

13 ‘Miðvikudags’ (‘Wednesday’) ‘Miðvikudags’

14 ‘Triumph Of A Heart’ ‘TOAH’

15 (Japanese bonus track) ‘Komið’ (‘Come’) ‘Komið’

Medúlla is a case study for her conception of unity and creative agency. Her
previous album Vespertine (2001) was originally entitled Domestika (Widdler 2001,
par. 12) and featured songs about personal relationships. However, in Medúlla
Björk’s attention turns her attention further inward to the visceral experience of the
body. Björk made the album almost exclusively from voices, or “every noise that a
throat makes” (Guðmundsdóttir in Ross 2004, par. 8), with the exception of a gong in
the opening song ‘PIAM’ and a piano in ‘Ancestors’. Björk’s voice features in every
song, ranging from unadorned simplicity in ‘SMF’ to distortion and technological
manipulation in ‘WITL’, ‘DC’ and ‘MC’. However, she also includes the diverse
voices of: beatboxers Rahzel, Shlomo and Dokaka; ‘human trombone’ Gregory
Purnhagen; Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq; rock vocalists Robert Wyatt and Mike
Patton; and two choirs from Iceland and London. Though the presence of Björk’s
voice defines and unites the album as a whole, within the “inner region” of the album
there are multiple voices.
Asked why she had made a vocal album, Björk answered: “I got pregnant […]
I became really physical and really aware of my muscles and bones. My body just
takes over and does incredible things, and it has got nothing to do with me” (in
Malawey 2007, 142). The created body “takes over” the control of the host body

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and Björk transfers this model of productive selfhood to her conceptions of the
creative artefact – the album itself. Within Medúlla Björk explores the themes of
sexual, maternal and creative experience. In the opening song ‘PIAM’, Björk sings of
the pleasure of ‘letting go’. ‘PIAM’ suggests pleasure is fundamentally derived from
being “the generous one”. Relinquishing one’s self, “be[ing] flown” (Guðmundsdóttir
2004, 2), is both a loss of agency whilst also representing freedom of choice. Given
the sexual theme of this opening song and the maternal themes that arise later in the
album, ‘PIAM’ can be interpreted as the album’s ‘conception’, an idea I return to in
my chapter on organicism.
‘WIT’ also deals with a generous self-relinquishment; but instead of sexual
pleasure, Björk uses a metaphor of skeletal stability built by her lover:
His embrace a fortress
It fuels me
And places a skeleton of trust
Right beneath us
Bone by bone stone by stone.
If you ask yourself patiently and carefully
Who is it? […]
That never lets you down
(Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 6).

The two aforementioned songs deal with submission to and reliance on

unknown others. Björk’s seemingly personal and “confessional” songs have led to
fans hearing “the subjectivity of the music as that of Björk” herself (Dibben 2006,
172). However, Björk’s use of different subject positions in Medúlla indicate that this
is an unreliable interpretation. For instance, in ‘Oceania’ Björk “portrays a persona,
‘Mother Oceania,’ who possesses the continents as children” (Malawey 2007, 41).
Although Björk’s subjectivity as ‘Mother Oceania’ is not explored in other songs, its
maternal theme frequently arises, for instance in ‘MC’ and ‘DC’, thus enhancing the
overarching subject position of the album. This is fundamentally rooted in Björk’s
experience of pregnancy and motherhood, which is both the experience of Björk
“herself” but also the engagement and creation of the other. Significantly, Sjón,
Björk’s friend and long-term collaborator wrote the lyrics of ‘Oceania’. Thus the
subject positions represented therein are not those of Björk herself but those she
performs. Just as she intertwines multivalent vocal timbres and personalities, Björk
thematically weaves together different authorial voices in her attempt to create a
unified album. However, the generous stance of the sexual and maternal discussed

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above are not always reciprocated by the other. In ‘WITL’ Björk presents a conflict
both musically and lyrically: “I’m elastic for you […] I want to be flexible / I want to
go out of my way for you / But enough is enough”. The child that she wants to have
“capacity” for takes over (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 4).
In Medúlla Björk questions the notion of the atomised individual, so often
assumed to represent the subjectivity of a modern singer-songwriter. Analysing
Vespertine, Nicola Dibben theorises that Björk’s construction of emotions are
“understood to be private and fluid, and contained within the boundaries of the self”
(Dibben 2006, 91). However, in Björk’s output she has already questioned isolated
views of the self, for instance in ‘Army of Me’ (Post [1995]). Through the
introduction of pliant models of identity, Björk does not atomise the self but
elasticates it.

The Elastic Self

In order to appreciate Björk’s challenge to conventional popular music

subjectivity in Medúlla, it is necessary to understand “the broader cultural narrative
belonging to the modern Western subject” (Dibben 2006, 172). This is epitomised by
Rene Descartes’ 1644 dictum of autonomous selfhood, “cogito, ergo sum” (“I think
therefore I am”). For Charles Taylor this autonomy led to a new “sense of the self and
its place in the cosmos: not open and porous and vulnerable to a world of spirits and
powers, but what I want to call ‘buffered’” (Taylor 2007, 27). Taylor distinguishes
the modern Western subject from other forms of subjectivity discussed by twentieth-
century anthropologists like Marilyn Strathern, who theorised ‘dividualism’ during
her fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Melanesians regard the self as composite,
“derivative of multiple identities”, whilst often regarding relationships with the
external as forming one “dividual composed of distinct male and female elements”
(Strathern 1988, 15).
Yet, anthropologists studying non-Western societies are not the only scholars
whose theories have questioned the autonomy of the self. Jacques Derrida and Michel
Foucault have destabilised notions of authorship and identity by – like Descartes –
assuming nothing, but questioning the role of independent thought. Whilst
anthropologists have challenged the notion of the autonomous self by reference to
traditional societies, the sociological theorists of ANT recognise fluidity between the

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division of human subjects and technological mediators. Through “waging war on
essential differences” (John Law in Cressman 2009, 1-2), the ANT scholars have
disputed divisions between human agency and non-human passivity. According to
Bruno Latour, “an actant can literally be anything provided it is granted to be the
source of action” (Latour 1996, 373). ANT has been received as the apex or nadir of
Western scientific thought, because it analyses data regardless of its source.
Infamously, this “symmetry” has led Michel Callon to analyse “people and scallops
in the same terms” (Law 2007, 5). ANT encapsulates a post-modern move from
humanism to post-humanism, although its ideas of a fluid notion of selfhood parallel
anthropologies of selfhood in non-Western societies.
ANT has been applied to music before, but scholars have mainly focused on
musical cultures rather than on the music itself. Nick Prior (2008) discussed “glitch”
in relation to Pierre Bourdieu’s theories, whilst Émilie Gomart and Antoine Hennion
(1999) used ANT to probe agency in musical and drug addiction. Nonetheless, in
“Software Sequencers and Cyborg Singers” (2009), Prior discusses singers’ use of
technology with ANT, an important starting point for the following chapter. I expand
the theory from its focus on processes of “recording” to an analysis of “the specific
shape that is recorded” (Latour 1996, 9) and, in doing so, highlight its applicability to
the study of albums as networks. Prior uses Hennion to propose that “musical texts
have always formed an ‘interconnected series of meditations’” with different
mediators contributing to our perceptions of the texts, which do not always represent
the composer’s intentions (Prior 2008, 314). ANT opens up a realm of analysis by
encouraging scholars to look at the context and network in which texts are situated
and developed.

Methodology

Drawing from these theories of alternate subjectivities and ANT’s emphasis

on the relationship of the interplay between human and technological agencies, I have
chosen to call the model of subjectivity expressed in Medúlla the ‘elastic self’, from
Björk singing “I’m elastic for you” in ‘WITL’ (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 4). Derived
from the Greek elastikos (propulsive), elasticity refers to a substance “able to resume
its normal shape spontaneously after being stretched or compressed” (Oxford
Dictionaries 2014b). An elastic substance is thus both agentic and pliable, just like

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Björk’s relinquishing in ‘PIAM’. I thus focus on how Björk conceived Medúlla, both
in the creative and recording processes and in the material she has released around it,
with primary evidence taken from interviews and the album’s accompanying
documentary, directed by Ragnheiður Gestsdóttir. I show how ideas of elasticity
inform not only issues of the creative agency of the author, whose recording process
was “dependent on outside musicians” (Leone 2004, par. 4), but also how Björk, and
others, have elasticated the boundaries of the album through reconceptualisation.

Chapter Two: The Voice

I was very conscious of my voice, and of all the other voices, how they fit
together and the relationship between them (Guðmundsdóttir in Inner or Deep
Part [IODP] 2004, 22:52-23:02).

The voice is evidently fundamental to Björk’s conception of Medúlla, but

what exactly is the voice? Amanda Weidman has called on scholars to treat the voice
“as a historical and anthropological object: something locatable within a particular
time and space” (Weidman 2006. 9). This task is difficult, however, due to the variety
of meanings associated with the voice. Simon Frith has provided a binary distinction
in performances, comparing Edward Cone’s “composer’s voice” (Cone 1974),
belonging to the (absent) author of a work, with Roland Barthes’ “grain of the voice”,
residing in the body of the performer (Barthes 1977). For Frith, this rooting of the
voice in the body has become a marker of authenticity in contemporary popular
music: “it is in real, material, singing voices that the ‘real’ person is to be heard”
(Frith 1998, 185). This seems particularly applicable to Björk as she has such a
distinctive vocal delivery (Malawey 2007, 253). Both Barthes and Frith connect the
voice with the resonating body, citing – like Roman Jakobson – the palpability of
words (Jakobson 1987, 70). Carolyn Abbate has further divided the voice between,
“the pure voice-object and the voice that we assign consciously to the virtuoso, as
performance” in relation to nineteenth-century opera. Separated from the source of
the sound, the “pure voice-object” becomes metaphysical for the audience in the
fantasy of performance; but Abbate describes how there is just a “thin, and
permeable” “membrane” between these voices (Abbate 1996, 10). Weidman has
called on us to “examine music as a means or technology for producing the voice, in

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both a sonic and an ideological sense” (Weidman 2006. 12-13), yet this relationship
needs to be reflexive when analysing how Björk constructed Medúlla from voices.

The Voice of the Studio

The voice, “conventionally seen as [the] most ‘natural’ expression of

unmediated humanity” (Prior 2009, 83) is now subject to unprecedented manipulation
through technologies of the recording studio. Although “the studio as instrument”
(Tunbridge 2010, 174) may provide the artist with “complete control” (Frith 1998,
245), it may undermine “the imagined ideal of the voice as an unmediated and
authentic expression of personality” (Prior 2009, 83). Because of feminist questions
of agency (Middleton 2006), interpretations of female voices in this context are
highly charged. For Kay Dickinson, the electronic manipulation of Cher’s voice with
a vocoder in ‘Believe’ (1998) is not a “replacement for something lacking, but […] a
booster added on to enhance one’s capabilities” (Dickinson 2001, 338). Her work
echoes Haraway’s influential work on the female cyborg, which posits a utopian
woman in which nature and technology are synthesised, adapted into ‘CyBjörk’ by
Eleonor Berry (2007). In contrast, Latour writes that “in spite of technologies having
nothing to do with mastery, it is nevertheless always in the form of the instrument, of
service rendered, that we speak about them” (Latour 2002, 250-251). His alternative
is to view technologies as “detours” (251) whilst Nick Prior has put forward that
technologies “favour” aspects of the creative process (Prior 2009, 82). Instead of the
studio being a mere instrument, it can be said to have a voice of its own.
In ‘WITL’, Björk presents her loss of personal agency in pregnancy through
the technological manipulation of her voice, and in doing so synthesises passivity and
agency in her conceptions of female subjectivity. Berry has proposed that in this song
Björk expresses “combativeness, as well as the possibility of ensuing battle, her army
is composed of laser-gun sounding shots, a haunting choral arrangement and a low
underlying growl” (Berry 2007, 510). Because Björk sings “I want to have capacity
for you / And be elastic” (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 4), I read the song as referring to the
distortion and explosiveness of pregnancy. As I have mentioned, she has described
pregnancy as uncontrollable: “My body takes over and does incredible things, and it
has got nothing to do with me” (in Malawey 2011, 142). Similarly, Björk’s voice
becomes increasingly distorted in a crescendo (from [1:43]), with the audio stream so

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fragmented that it sounds like an electronically induced stutter. Concurrently, Björk’s
lyrics become melismatic, “I am elastic / I want to go… / I want to… help…help with
you” and thus she stops being a thinking and controlling subject through her
uncontrollable language; as Abbate has written, “melismas, by splitting words […]
and separating syllable from syllable, destroy language” (Abbate 1996, 11). Unlike
‘PIAM’, where her generosity leads her to be happily “flown” by the joys of sexual
bliss, she is now being “flown” by a force in which her generosity of bearing can
seemingly grant her no reciprocity. Gone is the maternal myth of idyllic motherhood.
Marsh and West have commented on the opposite process in Madonna’s
‘Nothing Really Matters’ (1998), in which her voice remains “free from any radical
electronic alteration” (Marsh and West 2003, 197). Because “of Madonna’s
reputation for maintaining power over all aspects of her work, we believe that
Madonna resists being controlled by the machine” (Marsh and West 2003, 197). They
use her authorial voice to dispute claims that she is ‘just a voice’3 being used by male
producers and songwriters. Björk, too, has seen controversy in this area, with many
assuming that her engineer Valgeir Sigurðsson programmed the beats on Vespertine
(Bjömsson 2008). Like Dickinson, Marsh and West attempt to disrupt narratives
suggesting that female singers are simply tools of the music industry, but in doing so
present technologies as objects that can be mastered and resisted. Both articles
attempt to “degender” electronica through emphasising the female authorial voice
(Marsh and West 2003, 198), but in ‘WITL’ Björk presents an interesting regendering
of electronic music through her simultaneous agency and passivity. Thus, the
compositional process becomes one of resistance to gender roles being “passively
scripted on the body” (Butler 1988, 531).
Björk also uses vocal technologies to distort the clarity of lyrics in ‘MC’, but
instead of signifying Björk’s subject position as lead vocalist – as in ‘WITL’ – they
signify her child. Björk’s technological manipulation of her own voice in ‘MC’ is an
accompaniment texture to her lead vocal line. The four-bar motive that begins at
[0:24] sounds like different chopped-up samples cut awkwardly back together to
create a two-bar polyphonic ostinato. My reading of her spliced voice, whose sound
eschews language, is that it represents the child who is being breastfed, the “you” of
the song’s lyrics (IODP 2004, 28:10-28:12). At [2:05] and [2:48], this accompanying
                                                                                                               
3
“What most reactions to Madonna share, however, is an automatic dismissal of her music as
irrelevant.” (McClary 1991, p. 148).

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voice re-enters the mix – at first very quietly – whilst Björk sings, “you can follow
these notes” and “follow my voice” respectively (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 11). The
vocal sample represents the emerging “you” that the song is referring to, further
supported sonically by the wailing sound created by the splicing [0:27-0:28], linking
a child’s pre-language with technology. Judith Becker has described how
disintegrations of the subject can be facilitated by music’s “aura of a differing reality,
a sound-mediated reality” (Becker 2004, 84), which “invokes a realm of unseen
power and limitless extension”. Just as the “listening self […] may not be the same
self” (Becker 2004, 106), Björk’s different voices – set apart by technology – create
multiple Björks.
Perhaps even more significant than her adoption of the subject position of
both mother and child is the equation of the child with the technological. As in
‘WITL’, the voice becomes increasingly distorted as the song climaxes after the last
entry at [2:48]. Marsh and West have discussed how Madonna brought “motherhood
into a technological realm” (Marsh and West 2003, 183), but in Medúlla Björk also
brings childhood into the technological realm. Haraway has written that, the “cyborg
is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is
oppositional, utopian and completely without innocence” (in Robbie 2007, 94).
However, in ‘WITL’ and ‘MC’ Björk uses technology to signify flexibility and
following, presenting both the defencelessness of pregnancy as a dystopic event and
also the helplessness of the infant; reflecting an ANT-like acknowledgement of the
agency of the other. Björk uses her mastery of the studio to depict powerlessness,
thus raising gender-related issues of identity and agency. Indeed, Judith Butler has
written that “gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which
various acts proceede [sic]; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time – an
identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (Butler 1988, 519). In Medúlla
Björk attempts to create multiple identities that are “instituted” and survive in the
revolutions – repeated performances – of the record.

The Voice as a Studio

Whereas Björk’s voice is manipulated by the studio, the beatboxers on

Medúlla imitate and replace beats made in the studio as the rhythmic foundation.
Though imitating electronically programmed beats, beatboxers express the body.

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Beatboxers “imitate the sounds of drums, turntables and other sound effects
commonly found in popular music” (Lemaitre et al. 2011, 5). The style began in the
1980s as an accompaniment to hip-hop MCs, but although it has expanded to many
genres and countries it has not been studied extensively (Stowell and Plumbley 2008,
1). Musical imitation, says Max Paddison, has “led us to notions of music being
regarded as ‘expressive of’ in the sense of representing something else” (Paddison
2010, 127). However, beatboxers create “convincing impersonations of drum tracks”
(Stowell and Plumbley 2008, 1), thus replacing drum machines. Whereas Paddison’s
‘imitation’ implies that beatboxers represent what is being imitated, Prior has written
of Baudrillard’s “fourth order of the image, the simulacrum, where there is no longer
any real to suspend” (Prior 2009, 87) because beatboxers “replicate the sonic
repetitions of the drum machine, simulating the simulation” (Prior 2009, 93).7
Whereas the simulacrum confuses reality, ANT attempts to lay bare the reality of
“infinite pliability and absolute freedom” (Latour 1996, 9) in which technologies
should not be discriminated against (14). My analysis looks at these complex
networks of signification, imitation and simulation in the context of Medúlla.
Björk did not originally intend for beatboxers to appear on Medúlla, having
already programmed electronic beats: “I tried to postpone getting a beat boxer until
really late. I felt it was too obvious to make a vocal album and then just ask a beat
boxer to make all the beats” (IODP 2004, 15:48-16:05). When she decided on
employing them, however, Björk was instrumental in deciding how the beats were
made. In the album’s documentary, we can observe the recording process of English
beatboxer Shlomo’s beats in ‘Oceania’. After a take he says, “There’s loads of stuff
there, if someone can sift through and take each sound they like the best and replace
the electro beat with them” (IODP 2004, 39:25-39:33). A similar process is described
by audio engineer Valgeir Siggurðson in reference to ‘WITL’:
The song fell into place after Mark Bell had programmed some electronic
beats that suited the song but was [sic] perhaps out of character with regard to
the album as a whole. [… Rahzel …] conjured up the sounds we needed. And
we then transferred these sounds into the same form as the electronic beats. So
we had to go in many circles before finding how to make the song (IODP
2004, 19:26-20:24).

                                                                                                               
7
An interesting appendage to this would be the way in which many beatboxers now learn directly from
each other, on educational sites like: http://www.humanbeatbox.com/.

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These two songs suggest that the musical act of imitation is simply sonic. However in
‘WITL’ Björk conceived something different for Rahzel’s beats, adapting those
“programmed” with Mark Bell.
The earliest available version of ‘WITL’ – Björk’s live performance in
Berlin’s Treptow Arena (June 06, 2003) – features a prototype of the “‘explosion’
noises” (Malawey 2007, 326) that arrive at [02:33] in the album version. This beat
continues throughout most of the performance. In the album version, however, the
main beat begins at [00:20] (b. 7) and is a melodic ostinato performed by Rahzel
(figure 1). Over this beat, Björk sings that she “want[s] to be flexible” and elasticises
the rhythm of the opening verses through syncopation. This is best exemplified in the
rest at the start of bar 2 and the development of the extended figure that follows it.
When Rahzel’s beat arrives, though, it dictates the 4/4 rhythm of the song. One critic
has described the beat as being made from “popping drum sounds” from the “drum
voice” of Rahzel (Heumann 2004, par. 5), and it is the vocality of the beat that makes
it so invasive. Rahzel’s melody is derived from the lead vocal line but actually begins
a point of imitation at [0:33] (b. 11), shown boxed in figure 1. Although in beatboxing
“language-like patterns are suppressed, which […] may facilitate the illusion of a
non-vocal sound source” (Stowell and Plumbley 2008, 4), the melodic nature of
Rahzel’s beat makes it into a “drum voice”. In the creative process, Björk may appear
to be “obvious” in her use of beatboxers, but she adapts the technique to fit her own
conceptions for Medúlla.

  13  
Figure 1: (Malawey 2007, 322).

Rahzel’s technique bears relations to Barthes’ structuralist analysis of Russian

cantors, whose “voice is not personal: it expresses nothing of the cantor, of his soul”.
Barthes separates the “civil identity” from the cantor because he is expressing in his
“mother tongue” (Barthes 1977, 182). For Rahzel, his “mother tongue” becomes his
simulation of signified sounds, though he can imitate any new sound programmed
electronically. Björk describes how Rahzel is on the album because “those who are
talented remain talented” (IODP 2004, 15:48-16:55), and so his technique makes him
valuable. However, unlike structuralist semiotics, ANT “places the burden of theory
on the recording not on the specific shape that is recorded” (Latour 1996, 9). ANT

  14  
studies recorders (or mediators) but does not distinguish between the humanity or
materiality of the “specific shape that is recorded”.
The ANT scholar John Law describes the “performativity” (Law 2007, 12) of
the postmodern condition in which “what is real may be remade”. Likewise, Rahzel’s
“drum voice” remakes reality with a performance that could simultaneously
dismantle any distinction between technological sounds and the voice’s “manifest
deep-rootedness in the action of the throat” (Barthes 1977, 184). One critic has
written that Rahzel’s voice leaves “you wondering what is processed and what isn’t”
(Beaumont 2004, par. 5). ANT neglects this interest in the overlap created through
performance because of its “complete indifference for providing a model of human
competence” (Latour 1996, 7). Far from lacking a distinction between human and
non-human sounds, in Medúlla Björk emphasises human vocality in the recording
process by using Rahzel as a “drum voice” instead of using the unmelodic
“‘explosion’ noises” in the first live version.
The process of recruiting beatboxers seems to match Björk’s conception of the
album happening ‘naturally’. When asked, “What inspired you to use the timbres and
textures of the human voice as the main instrument?” she replied, “It wasn’t planned.
With Vespertine and some of my earlier albums I set myself certain goals and
objectives, but with this album the only plan was to do what I wanted and have total
freedom” (in Sarah-Jane 2014, question 2). Her creation of Medúlla does not suggest
“total freedom”, however, but an attempt to craft an album united in its vocal
concept. Whilst laying herself upon to external voices, Björk is firmly established as
the album’s composer.

Chapter Three: Björk’s Medúlla as Organicist Composition

Discussions of Organicism

It is clear that, through her lyrics and discussions around the album, Björk has
linked the musical creation to maternal genesis or, as she sings in ‘Oceania’,
“harmony made into flesh” (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 9). In this section, therefore, I
conduct an organicist motivic analysis of the album before looking at its elastic
boundaries and rhizomic connections through ANT. There are a series of
interconnections that can be drawn between the Romantic conception of organicism

  15  
as an aesthetic ideal, and ANT’s observations about human and non-human object
relations. For the analytical organicists Heinrik Schenker and Rudolph Réti, great
music “grows and takes shape by itself” with the composer “regarded as a sort of
midwife to this immanent life force, rather than a maker-of-things” (Solie 1980, 155).
The agency of the “form-generating motive” (Montgomery 1992, 25) aspires to
holism because the “unity most like nature’s unity produces the highest beauty”
(Solie 1980, 149). Like organicism, ANT emphasises a “strong interrelationship
between all things” (149), but instead of a whole existing “before or above the
‘parts’” (Latour et al. 2012, 597) the network does not distinguish between micro and
the macro, or inside and outside (Latour 1996, 5-6). Although both theories deal with
the agency of the other, organicism’s agentic motive creates a unified whole, whilst
ANT’s agentic other creates a complex network or rhizome.
Both critics and Björk herself have described Medúlla using organicist
metaphors. Though most discussions of the album’s ‘organicism’ deal with its
“organic vocal focus” (Battaglia 2004, par. 2) and its “organic sound” (Phrares 2014,
par. 1), some have commented on the “unified perspective” of the album as a whole
(Granat 2004, par. 10). Björk has also commented on physical unity, using meat as a
metaphor for bodily sexuality:
I wanted to do a vocal album and I wanted it to have a strong feeling of heart,
blood and meat and at the same time I wanted the lower half of the body to
merge into the music […] I wanted to start out by proving that a vocal album
[…] can indeed be a steak, a rare steak on the table. And I think we managed
to prove that point, we haven’t got a veggie burger in our hands (IODP 2004,
33:23-34:12).

She has also noted an integrated conception of the lyrics as expressing a return to a
primordial state: “I guess [‘TOAH’] and [‘PIAM’] are about love. The rest of the
songs are about ancestry and trying to get back to the core of civilization before
religion and terrorism and George Bush” (in Sarah-Jane, question 8). Yet, she has
also emphasised how she “decided to give the lyrics no thought, just let them happen
by themselves […] And maybe let them be a bit organic” (IODP 2004, 23:03-23:30).
These two statements seem to contradict each other: in the first Björk is organising
unity, and in the second she is working “with natural forces coming from within, not
‘with prescience’ and rational planning” (Solie 1980, 155). This is the fundamental
binary of organicism, one that has already been established as fundamental to
Medúlla: the composer is elastic, both agentic and pliable.

  16  
 In “trying to get back to the core”, Björk “wanted to leave out civilisation, to
rewind to before it all happened and work out, ‘Where is the human soul?’ […] It’s
about getting to the essence of something. And with this album being all vocals, that
made sense” (in Foley 2014a, par. 28-30). The equation of the physical body through
the voice and the “soul” echoes the nineteenth-century “organismic biology”
discussed by Solie. These biologists moved from anatomy and dissection to an
understanding of organisms as “single complete” entities whose “self-contained
unitary quality stands in direct opposition to the nature of machines or of inorganic
matter” (Solie 1980, 15). This highlights one of the key aspects of organicism, that
unity and purpose separate life from mere matter.
Björk, on the other hand, has also discussed the album’s unity from a more
practical perspective by discussing the matter to be manipulated:
I had so much material I’d say 80% of the time spent on this album was pure
editing. Sometimes I just needed to swap chunks around, other times I had to
add vocals from one track to another or strip everything down to a couple of
notes. As much as everyone delivered live performances, there was a lot of
weaving and layering needed to bring the whole album together (in Sarah-
Jane 2014, question 6).

Björk encourages the analyst to look for motivic cross-references because of the
“weaving and layering” across the songs.
Like the organicists, Björk has also linked unity with maternity: “There are [a]
lot of little things about this record that seem to fit together […] it feels good to trust
nature and my subconscious. You start some kind of universe, and because you’re
doing it from the right place, it completes itself” (Foley 2014a, par. 33-34). Note the
similarity to Solie’s statement that the work of art “grows and takes shape by itself:
the artist need only give it birth” (Solie 1980, 155); but instead of creating a living
organicism Björk has created a “universe”. This intergalactic theme is explored by
Björk in ‘DC’, in which she sings, “With a palm full of stars / I throw them like dice
on the table / Until the desired constellation appears” (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 8).
MTV’s Jennifer Vineyard has ironically suggested that those lyrics “might well
describe her method behind Medúlla’s madness” (Vineyard 2004, par. 2). This
aleatoric approach – “just follow my heart and be spontaneous” (in Sarah-Jane 2014,
question 8) – is similar to motherhood, in which the child “takes over” (in Malawey
2011, 142). Organicist aesthetics and thinking run deep in Björk’s interweaving of
essence, inspiration, nature and unity in her discussions of creation. Close analysis

  17  
will demonstrate the extent to which such aesthetics inform her compositional
practice, shown through her use of Sibelius software and choral arrangements (Inside
Björk 2003, 40:44-41:08 and IODP 2004, 21:22-22:18). Moreover, the emphasis on
repetition in motivic unity echoes Butler’s discussions of gender, “an identity
instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (Butler 1988, 519). Medúlla’s unity, I
argue, does not suggest a passive inertia but a way to create identity through
recording and composition.

Organicism and Unity

A critical aspect of the organicist aesthetic is a linking of musical foreground

and background and the resulting “strong interrelationship between all things” (Solie
1980, 149). In the opening song ‘PIAM’, Björk uses chromaticism and, specifically,
semitonal shifts in her melodies, harmonies and modulations. ‘PIAM’ is the only
song on the album to feature chromatic notes in Björk’s lead vocal line. The first is
heard in the introduction, where there is an oscillation between E♮ and E♭ as well as
chords of root C and D♭. Then at bar 6 Björk sings a melody beginning on C4 and
ascending to B4. This climb of an inverted semitone contains two chromatic
appoggiaturas that rise (from E♯) to F♯4 and (from A♯) to B♮4. These releases of
tension are significant in the context of the song’s sexual lyrics: “The pleasure is all
mine / To get to be the generous one” (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 2). Her chromaticism
aids her attempt to make ‘PIAM’ the album’s conception, detailing the song’s
sexuality through music.
The melodic chromaticism of the opening verse outlines a chromatic chord
progression in F minor: [i7-iii7-♮VII-i] (bb. 6-9 and 10-13). Here, Björk modulates to
E major featuring a striking shift from E-f, linked by the enharmonic third of G♯/A
♭. Furthermore, Björk modulates from the F minor of verse 1 to F♯ Minor at bar 23
to begin what Malawey has called the second verse, before returning to the prolonged
dominant of F minor in the outro (bar 32). Melodic, harmonic and modulatory
processes articulate in their semitonal movements. One reading may be that the
opening’s rise and fall of a semitone predicts the ascent and descent within the tonal

  18  
 plan of the piece (figure 3).

Figure 2: Transcription of 'PIAM' reduced to choral parts (Malawey 2007, 318).

 
 

  19  
Figure 3.

The organicist “form-generating motive” suggests tonal plans for pieces

(Montgomery 1992, 25). Such teleology has been discussed by Robert Morgan in
relation to the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto, K. 503, as different
aspects “all unite to present a coherent, forward-directed trajectory” (Morgan 2003,
30). However, Björk’s semitonal shifts are motions or processes that do not assert a
“forward-directed trajectory”.
These ‘oscillations’ in ‘PIAM’ could be an example of what Malawey has
described as musical emergence or the “the gradual materialization, introduction or
becoming of a fuller texture or more complete musical idea” (Malawey 2011, 143).
She writes that in ‘SMF’ “the qualities of openness offered by this piece encourage a
mode of emergent listening” because of the ambiguity of mode (Malawey 2011, 166).
Similarly, in ‘PIAM’ both the prolonged dominant of F minor in the intro and outro
as well as Björk’s semitonal oscillations that refuse to stay in F minor create
emergence. Malawey has not used emergence as a process that could affect the
structure and form of the album as a whole, but through the interactions of these
chromatic process Björk ‘conceives’ the album in this opening song, and within its
opening Björk exposes motives that will come to unify the album.
Motivic organicism has been criticised for “playing into the clever hands of
the composer” (Montgomery 1992, 25), because it implies that motives have agency.
Conversely, others have argued it plays into the “clever hands” of the analyst
because, if looking, “you are bound to find the same patterns reduplicated
everywhere” (Cook 1993, 82). This fundamental critique of Rétian analysis is also
propounded in scholarship on popular music, with Laura Tunbridge criticising
finding “tonal schemes and motivic cross-references” in The Beatles’ music because
it “tells us more about [scholars’] listening strategies and analytical methodologies”
than the band’s “creative principles” (2010, 170). Classically trained, Björk’s

  20  
compositional practice has links to organicist aesthetics as seen through the motivic
links made by her in Medúlla. The album continues a long tradition of concept
albums, for instance Joni Mitchell’s, which use “musical techniques” such as
“motivic relations” to create unity (Whitesell 2008, 196). Indeed, pace Tunbridge,
these techniques are a vital to Björk’s conception of Medúlla and represent her larger
‘organicist’ aesthetic.
I have labelled he first motive I analyse x or the Phrygian Motive. First heard
in the opening of ‘PIAM’, it could represent a “teleological” growth (Solie 1980,
152) from emergent beginnings in ‘WITL’ and ‘Submarine’ (figure 4). Nicola Dibben
has described how “many of Björk’s tracks use the Phrygian mode” citing its usage in
“dark and depressive contexts on the one hand, and with Spanish and Arabic
‘exoticism’ on the other” (Dibben 2009a, 13). This exotic context is heard in Björk’s
performances of ‘WITL’ on her 2003 tour, in which a heterophonic string
accompaniment in Berlin (discussed above) indicates a Middle-Eastern influence.
However, on the album version the Phrygian mode seems to be derived from heavy
metal music,12 in which it is a key feature because of the flattened-second’s
“aggressive power” (Moore 2011, 1). The song’s subject, the invasion of space, is
suggested not just by Björk’s distorted voice – as mentioned in chapter two – but
through motives.
Figure 4 ('Submarine' from Malawey 2007, 343).

                                                                                                               
12
“And of course I wanted a bit of rock, let’s not forget that” (Gestsdóttir 2004, 16:59-17:01).

  21  
 The instability of C♯ as root of the Phrygian mode becomes obvious when a
counter-melody appears at bar 35 [1:44] (figure 5). This results in the collision of x-1
(E-D-C♯) with x-7 (B♭-A♭-G). 13 These tritonally related motives could be
considered harmonically cohesive through the Octatonic scale; however, they are best
heard as a conflict, as they do not coalesce into sonorities and are rhythmically
separated. The agency of the motive in ‘WITL’ reflects a different kind of
organicism; instead of the “ideal quality” of a living organism (Solie 1980, 150)
Björk creates a piece that “wills to persist and increase on its own” (Schenker in Solie
1980, 154), competing with Björk’s agency as composer but also as singer. Once
again, the mother/creator is not utopian but physical and experiential.
In ‘Submarine’, Björk uses both motive x and what I have called y, which I read
as an evocation of primordial past; and, as in ‘PIAM’, she uses semitonal movement in
the musical foreground and background. Malawey’s transcriptions show how between
[0:50] and [1:36] the choral parts oscillate almost exclusively between two chords (figure
6). One of the song’s main themes is x-2, which appears twice in the introduction [0:00-
0:31] and nine times in the outro [2:12-3:14] and y-0 also appears twice(figure 4).
Malawey has described the song “as an invitation to break forth from her prior creative
dormancy”, prompted by Björk’s description that “the part of me that writes songs had
gone dormant […] it’s been hibernating, so it’s a little bit of an alarm call” (Malawey
2011, 153). We can read the use of these two motives as an evocation of a primordial past
made present through linking to the emergent opening of the album.

                                                                                                               
13
In x-n, n=semitonal transposition from root C.

  22  
Figure 5: 'WITL' transcription (Malawey 2007, 324-325).

  23  
Figure 6: 'Submarine' transcription (Malawey 2007, 343).

The opening of ‘Submarine’ is the longest period without Björk’s voice; depicting
her “dormancy”. Yet Malawey’s transcriptions label the voices 1-10 and so neglect the
importance of Björk’s individuality as lead vocalist (Malawey 2007, 342). The aesthetic
of the album is different to that of choral arrangements because of the significance of
vocal grain and personality. The “alarm call” of awakening comes at the modulation to a
new key area (E minor) at [1:39] when Björk’s lead vocal comes in for the first time
(figure 6). This key area emphasises E♮ and B♮, whereas the chords in the introduction
oscillated between A-B♭ and D-E♭. E♮ represent both a semitonal move up from E♭

  24  
and an ascent by a tone from D, an application of a similar process as in ‘PIAM’ but for a
different effect. This tonal scheme is founded on the semantic connection made by both
Björk’s voice as a composer and the “grain” of her voice. Far from representing absolute
music’s teleological schemes viewable on the stave, in ‘Submarine’ the tonal plan needs
to be heard.

Figure 7.

In the album’s final song ‘TOAH’ Björk uses a bass line derived from the album’s
opening (beginning [0:16]), and again uses chromatic motion in melody, harmony and
modulation (figure 8). The hook’s contour emphasises the semitonal oscillation between
the fifth and minor 6th and, likewise, the opening chord sequence (from [0:16]) also is an
oscillation between G minor and A♭ major. At [1:20] this is transposed up a semitone for
the second verse (to G♯ minor and A major). Then at the bridge (from [2:24]) Björk
moves to an F major modality, which is reinforced by the next progression B♭ major and
A minor. It is difficult to know whether this final move to F major relates to the F minor
of the opening song. However, given Björk’s awareness of the principles of organicism
and her linking of melodic, harmonic and modulatory processes across songs to create a
unified album, it would be unsurprising.

  25  
Figure 8.

Another melodic prototype Björk uses in the opening of ‘PIAM’, and then
throughout the album, creating motivic unity, is the ascending seventh (figure 9).
This first comes as an extension of the y motive at [0:22] from C-B♭ before the verse
climbs to a B♮. The song’s climax comes after the second of two major sevenths, at
the lyrics “when in doubt give” [2:27]. The example from ‘WITL’, like the first
‘PIAM’ example, is also an extension figure, first heard as an ascending fifth (b. 2),
then as a sixth (bb. 5-6) (figure 1) and then as a seventh [1:02] (figure 9). My graph
shows how Björk uses the minor 7th to outline an incomplete Phrygian scale (‘SMF’,
‘WITL’, ‘Vökuró’, ‘Oceania’), whilst also using it as an Aeolian (‘PIAM’ a, ‘MC’),
Mixolydian (‘TOAH’) and for an unknown modality in ‘Submarine’ and ‘Ancestors’
c. The example I have labelled “‘PIAM’ b” is the only one to be chromatically

  26  
inflected, whilst the other two examples in which Björk outlines a major seventh are
diatonic. These both come from ‘Ancestors’, a song in which these motives are some
of the only melodic material. In the case of the major sevenths, the unresolved tension
of the leading note seems to suggest that Björk’s “weaving and layering” creates a
web of connections that are not resolved within Medúlla. Because many of the
examples are extended vocal runs (e.g. in ‘PIAM’, ‘WITL’, ‘WIT’, ‘Oceania’,
‘TOAH’), Björk’s organicism can be seen as a carefully planned unity as well as a
letting go to the physical joys of singing (Ross 2004, par. 35). One addition that the
application of ANT could make to discussions of organicism is that there is no
essential and absolute agency for either the composer or the motive. Björk does not
need to have deliberately intended all of the motivic links that I have made in this
essay for them to still create a connected unity or network.

  27  
 Figure 9.
Minor Sevenths

***
Major Sevenths

All sung by Björk as lead vocalist except for the soprano and alto
choral part in ‘Vökuró’.
When parts have not been given time signatures they are in free time.

The importance of Björk’s physical voice in her presentations of motives is

her attempt at “getting to the essence of something” through the physicality of the
voice (in Foley 2014a, par. 30); Björk’s organicism treads the fine line between
inspiration and organisation. However, the issue of what kind of unity these
connections create is still unexplored. Nicholas Cook writes that Réti’s organicist
motivic analysis was “to demonstrate that […] programmatic interpretation is

  28  
misguided and redundant. The music, says Réti, can stand on its own” (Cook 1993,
83). However, I have provided examples from ‘PIAM’, ‘WITL’ and ‘Submarine’ that
invite hermeneutic readings within Medúlla. The organicist belief in absolute music is
summarised by Robert Morgan: “The musical composition is at once unified yet
differentiated […] And since it is self-sufficient, it is interpretable without reference
to outside factors” (Morgan 2003, 24). This seems mistaken in relation to Medúlla, as
Björk’s motivic connections expand outside the album. Furthermore, the songs on the
album were but one possible conception. Kofi Agawu has described how “Analysis
adopts [the unity of musical masterworks] as premise, and, with a curiously circular
logic, proceeds to demonstrate that unity” (Agawu 1991, 126). He critiques the
attitudes of analysts, like Schenker, who divided up composers “into those who create
out of the background, that is to say, from tonal space, the urlinie, who are the
geniuses, and those who move only within the foreground, who are the non-geniuses”
(in Solie 1980, 155). Björk’s conception of organicism is part of her musical
language and her attempt to create unity within Medúlla, but it does not necessarily
follow that it stands “interpretable without reference to outside factors” (Morgan
2003, 24).
I prefer to view the motivic unity within the album as an attempt to cater to
holistic listening. A Manchester Evening News critic has written that Medúlla is “less
a collection of singles than one perfect piece” (Manchester Evening News 2007, par.
4). They also note that the album is “concept album, not in the sense that it tells some
sort of operatic narrative, but that it begs to be listened to all at once” (par. 6). Even
though Björk does not use narrative structures or teleological tonal plans, she has still
created a unified album through its concept: the exploration and combination of
multiple voices through the techniques of organic unity.
Organicists have traditionally shied away from the physicality of sound: “the
point of calling something ‘organic’ was not to describe the arrangement of its
physical attributes but, on the contrary, to elevate it to a status transcendent of the
physical” (Solie 1980, 150). Yet I would follow Weidman in attempting to study the
voice as a “historical and anthropological object” (Weidman 2006, 9), and so treat
timbre and texture as integral parts of motivic analysis through looking at two
motives that Björk uses both inside and outside the album.

  29  
 Granular Organicism

Björk’s organicism through her self-described vocal “weaving and layering”

can be seen in the opening “tu tu” figure of ‘ÖB’, which comes from her earlier song
‘Unravel’ (Homogenic) ,and is also used in ‘Miðvikudags’ and the Medúlla bonus
track ‘Komið’. In ‘Unravel’ the unworded figure beginning at [0:12] is the beginning
of a hesitant unravelling of melody and language. At [0:22], Björk’s voice cracks
before singing “el-lo-o-o-o-o”, possibly representing a tentative greeting of “hello” to
the world. Similarly, in ‘Miðvikudags’ and ‘Komið’ she “eschew[s] formal language
altogether; instead, [singing] nonsense syllables that could suggest a new type of
emergent language, which she has described as her ‘own gibberish language’”
(Malawey 2011, 142). The motif begins at [0:10] in ‘ÖB’ and outlines every second
beat, helping to provide a sense of metre. It also does this in ‘Komið’, in which the
figure begins at [1:30] and continues until the end. However, in ‘Miðvikudags’ – in
which the figure begins at [0:49] – it outlines every fourth beat, going against the
prevailing 9/8. This network of motives is unconstrained by the boundaries of the
album and seems in opposition to the organicist aesthetics of self-sufficiency; both
because of the links to material outside of the album, but also through the importance
of the “grain” of Björk’s voice as an auditory connector outside of language and
musical connections clearly seen on a stave.

  30  
Figure  10:  (Malawey  2007,  332,  387,  395).  

The kind of unity found in Medúlla, then, might better be described as

rhizomic than arboreal. The rhizome, defined as a “continuously growing horizontal
underground stem which puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals”
(Oxford Dictionaries, 2014c), has been usefully employed in contemporary theory.
Vanessa Chang has summarised Deleuze and Guatarri descriptions of music’s “lines
of flight, like so many ‘transformational multiplicities’, even overturning the very
codes that structure or arborify it; that is why musical form, right down to its ruptures
and proliferations, is comparable to a weed, a rhizome” (Chang 2009, 143). Latour
has also adopted the rhizome by suggesting “Actant-Rhizome Ontology” (Cressman
2009, 2) as a more accurate but less aesthetically pleasing name for ANT.

  31  
 Chapter Four: Rhizomes and Remixes

we should now move on from static and topological properties to dynamic

and ontological ones (Latour 1996, 6).

As I have suggested through my earlier analysis of the elastic self and the
theme of giving in Medúlla, Björk’s pregnancy encouraged her to view the body and
the self as shaped by the external. Because of this, although Medúlla shows signs of
organic unity through motivic and textural organicism, I will study how these
principles are not confined to the album. Rather, Björk’s recording output can be seen
as a network rather than a series of discrete works, in which “digital mediation
intensifies the elasticity of the musical text” because of reinterpretations and
reconstitutions (Prior 2009, 82).
Analysing a motive that Björk has used in many different contexts within and
outside Medulla demonstrates one aspect of the rhizomic linkage of her musical
materials. This in turn suggests that Björk does not conceive of her songs as isolated
works but part of a network that “is all boundary without inside and outside” (Latour
1996, 6). In the bell-choir remix for the ‘WIT’ video Björk uses a countermelody
(beginning [2:09]) from her earlier single ‘Jóga’ (Homogenic). In ‘Jóga’, the motive
begins at [3:56] and rises from G♯-E♮, then receding to the background in the song’s
end (figure 11). It is also used in ‘Komið’ (beginning [0:46]), although it rises from
G-D without reaching E♭. Both the videos for ‘WIT’ and ‘Jóga’ are set in a stark
Icelandic landscape. In none of these three songs does this phrase have published
lyrics but it sounds as if Björk is singing “Allt sem…” (“All that”).14 These lyrics are
repeated in the opening verse of her single ‘Náttúra’ (2009):

Icelandic English
Allt sem hann leiðir Everything that he leads
allt sem hún fleygir everything that she throws away
allt sem hún fleygir everything that she throws away
náttúra! Nature!
(Songlyrics.com 2014, par. 1.)

Once again, Icelandic nature is the focal point and so one reading could be that
through using “allt sem”, Björk is indicating the totality of nature. In ‘Náttúra’
these lyrics have an explicit political objective as part of her “Icelandic
                                                                                                               
14
Björk also sings these lyrics in ‘The Boho Dance’ A Tribute to Joni Mitchell (2007) and
‘Amphibian’ from the single for ‘Cocoon’ (2002).

  32  
environmental movement” (Philips 2008, par. 2). Through these connections Björk
shows the “innate dynamism” of the album, “a thing untethered to any particular
point in space and time” (Chang 2009, 145), and by moving between the grain of
her voice and her authorial voice she elasticates both the musical motive and the
songs themselves.  

Figure  11.  

Another rhizomic feature that recurs throughout Björk’s work is the

reworking of songs in different mixes through sampling. Vanessa Chang has
described the “elasticity” (Chang 2009, 148) of the sample, “celebrated and decried,
oddly enough, as both facilitating and dissolving human agency” (144). The semantic
‘propulsion’ of the sample is out of the control of the composer as it makes links to
other works and contexts:
Sample-based music uses sounds instrumentally, rather than using instruments
to make sounds. In sampling, sound marks the beginning of the creative
process, and is accordingly treated as raw material. Instrument-based music
treats sound as an ontological object, in which sound is considered the end of
the process (Chang 2009, 146).

Chang, though, fundamentally misreads the aesthetics of “instrumental-based

music” in claiming that within it “sound is considered the end of the process”. Réti
has described how “Music is created from sound as life is created from matter” (in
Solie 1980, 154), suggesting that composers use sounds as “raw material” in their
bid to create something more. Chang could, then, be unwittingly conducting a neo-
organicist reading of sample-based music through suggesting both the agency of
musical signs and the ability of sound to create something beyond itself.

  33  
 Jon Pareles describes how although some songs on Medúlla are “Complete
in themselves, they also await their remixes” (Pareles 2004, par. 12). Björk
describes the “funny story” of the creation of ‘DC’ in her Mixing It interview on
BBC Radio 3:

Olivier Alary from Ensemble “had sent me a CD with a few sketches […] and
then a year later I wrote this melody […] and I was singing it […] and [they]
fitted perfect together […] Then when I discovered that the whole album
would be a vocal album […] I started doing choir arrangements for it […
which I] recorded three times doing totally different things […] I was editing
it all […] but it wasn’t right”.

She then rung Alary to tell him that “I’m going to stick to your old version” but he
replied “guess what, I made it out of your own voice”. The song’s accompaniment is
actually made from a sample of Björk singing ‘I’m not sure what to do with it’ from
Vespertine’s ‘Hidden Place’ (Mixing It 2004, 1:50-4:05), although Alary had changed
it so much that even Björk herself could not detect her voice. This song then
represents a complex web of voices: that of Björk herself as composer, singer, and
unbeknownst accompanist manipulated into a distorted haze by Alary’s production.
The trust Björk places in chance and coincidence seems to reflect its complicated
origins: “With a palm full of stars / I throw them like dice on the table / Until the
desired constellation appears” (Guðmundsdóttir 2004, 8). Thus the sample seems not
just to be pliable material to be used “instrumentally”, as Chang suggested, but rather
it creates meaning within ‘DC’ through detours that “betray” the “most imperious
desires of the creator (Latour 2002, 252). Björk’s agency as a composer is, again,
intimately linked to her relationship with her voice but also to the impact of other
creative voices.
The alternative choral arrangement made by Björk for ‘DC’, although not
making the cut, has played a part in Medúlla’s history. The ‘DC Choir Mix’ was
released on the ‘TOAH’ UK DVD with Björk’s vocals unchanged but with a choral
rather than electronically programmed accompaniment. One other remix of ‘DC’,
released as the B-side to ‘TOAH’, by the Australian electronic music artist Ben Frost
(dubbed ‘Ben Frost’s School of Emotional Engineering Mix’), uses this choral
arrangement to provide the accompaniment to Björk’s voice instead of using the
album version. Similarly, ‘Who Is It (C2n Dattasette Mix)’ released on Who Is It
Remixes (2004), uses the ‘Who Is It (Choir Mix)’ (from the ‘WIT’ Single). This

  34  
‘Choir Mix’ features a prolonged unworded choral introduction and outro heard in the
album’s documentary (IODP 2004, 11:40-13:12). Though the ‘C2n Dattasette Mix’ is
the same length as the album version, without the extended intro and outro, it uses an
electronic telephone-like sound (beginning at the chorus [2:45]), taken from the
chorus in the ‘C2n Dattasette Mix’ [0:58]. Both remixes use material from the
alternate choral, suggesting that the material contained within Medúlla is not a stable
urtext but one possibility out of Björk’s conception for the songs. Thus, it is not just
motivic connections made by Björk’s voice as a composer that create links in
Medúlla; the producers who she has worked with have also reinterpreted and
reconceptualised her songs. The same “weaving and layering needed to bring the
whole album together” has been used to show the “innate dynamism of the musical
object” (Chang 2009, 145). These remixes highlight how “musical texts have always
formed an ‘interconnected series of meditations’” (Prior 2008, 314) and, as such, do
not represent a “static” view of Medúlla (Latour 1996, 9).

Conclusion

The rhizomic outgrowths from Medúlla continue, with a recently announced

operatic version planned for 2015,21 as well as countless remixes and covers. As the
critic for the Manchester Evening News wrote, it begs to be listened to “all at once”,
whilst its offshoots are still affecting the music landscape − and as Jon Parales
commented, though the songs are “Complete in themselves, they also await their
remixes”. On its way Medúlla has elasticated the boundaries of composition and
production, individual and collective, motherhood and technology, etc. The
organicism of Medúlla is not an ‘absolute’ organicism based on transcendence but
one intimately linked to the female experience of conception and motherhood, whose
productive creation is ultimately dividual.
I selected Medúlla as the focus for this dissertation not only because of the
connections and contradictions of the album’s voices but because of Björk’s ability to
create coherence and musical unity. Correspondingly, in this dissertation I have
drawn from analytical organicism and the tools provided by a university music
education but also from Actor Network Theory, which destabilises many of these
autonomous notions of the musical work and composition. The analytical insights
                                                                                                               
21
http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/421/459/2014-2015-season.

  35  
provided into the auditory dimensions of unity in Medúlla are huge. Yet, there are
many links that are difficult to discuss when separated from the stave; frequently the
reader must listen to the “grain” of the voice. This, though, seems to be Björk’s
greatest achievement: that she creates meaning and connections with her voice as a
producer, composer and singer, even when her voice is seemingly obscured by the
technological haze. Both organicism and Actor Network Theory, although
questioning absolute agency, highlight our fascination with what it means to be
human; Medúlla seems to penetrate to the heart of this question.

Words: 9,997

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 Discography and Filmography

Björk

Gling Gló [CD] Björk Guðmundsdóttir and Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar. One Little
Indian, UK, 1990. 55:00.

Post [CD] One Little Indian, UK, 1995. 46:10.

Homogenic [CD] One Little Indian, UK, 1997. 43:00.

Vespertine [CD] One Little Indian, UK, 2001. 55:38.

‘Amphibian’ from Cocoon [music track, CD, single, CD2] One Little Indian,
Londonn 2002. 4:35.

‘Prayer of the Heart’ from A Portrait: John Tavener [music track, CD] Björk
Guðmundsdóttir with John Tavener. Naxos, UK, 2004.

‘Where Is The Line’ from Berlin Poetry [music track, unofficial release, CD] Unity
Records, Europe, 2004. 4:27.

Medúlla [CD] One Little Indian, UK, 2004. 45:39.

‘Komið’, Medúlla [music track, CD] Polydor, Japan, 2004. 2:01.

‘Who Is It (Choir Mix)’ from Who Is It [music track, DVD, Single] One Little Indian,
UK, 2004. 7:42.

‘Who Is It (Carry My Joy On The Left Carry My Pain On The Right) (C2n Dattasette
Mix)’ from Who Is It [music track, CD, Single, CD2] One Little Indian, UK, 2004.
3:23.

  44  
‘Desired Constellation (Ben Frost’s School Of Emotional Engineering Mix)’ from
Triumph Of A Heart [music track, CD, Single, CD1] Björk Guðmundsdóttir with Ben
Frost. One Little Indian, UK, 2005. 5:54.

‘Desired Constellation (Choir Mix) from Triumph Of A Heart [music track, DVD,
Single]. One Little Indian, UK, 2005. 4:44.

“Intro and Interview Segment”, Mixing It [radio programme clip, online] BBC, UK,
22:15-23:30, August 20, 2004, BBC Radio 3. 0:00-4:37.
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/2004+08+20+Mixing+It+Interview+BBC+Radio+3
+London+England/5372197.

‘The Boho Dance’ from A Tribute to Joni Mitchell [CD]. Nonesuch, UK, 2007.

Náttúra [CD, single] Björk Guðmundsdóttir with Thom Yorke. One Little Indian,
UK, 2009. 3:49.

Biophilia [CD]. One Little Indian, UK, 2011. 49:34.

Other Artists

‘Believe’ from Believe [music track, CD] Cher. Warner Bros, U.S.A., 1998. 3:59.

‘Nothing Really Matters’ from Ray of Light [music track, CD] Madonna. Maverick
Records, U.S.A, 1998.

Filmography

‘Jóga’ from Volumen [music video, DVD] Björk Guðmundsdóttir. Directed Michel
Gondry. One Little Indian, UK, 1997. 3:14.

Dancer in the Dark [DVD] Directed Lars von Trier. FilmFour, UK, 2000. 140:00.

  45  
Inside Björk Documentary [documentary, DVD, online] Björk Guðmundsdóttir. One
Little Indian, UK, 2003. 50:32.

Björk: Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure [documentary, DVD,

online] Directed Ragnheiður  Gestsdóttir. One Little Indian, UK, 2004. 48:40.

‘Who Is It? ‘Carry my joy on the left, carry my pain on the right) in Who Is It [music
video, DVD] Björk Guðmundsdóttir. Directed Dawn Shadforth. One Little Indian,
UK, 2004. 3:56.

  46