Buffalo News - Jeff Miers - Bjork's new album Medulla has resulted in a few Todd mentions. Jeff Miers in the Buffalo News said
"Medulla is far less eccentric than its surface might suggest. Comprised almost in its entirety of voices -- that's right, no instruments, no guitars, no synths, no sequencers, no insistence of drum-driven rhythm -- the album seems at first a minimalist affair, as if Bjork has reduced her art to its barest essentials"
"There are precedents for what Bjork has done here; Kate Bush and her work with the Trio Bulgarka, as represented on the classic "The Sensual World" record, and Todd Rundgren, who produced the aptly- titled "A Capella" album by layering and multi-tracking his own voice, are useful semaphores in this potentially disorienting little world. But Bjork goes a step beyond both of these artists. In fact, if one is able to hear the voices as instruments free of the text they are delivering, one begins to realize how well-orchestrated and dense this music is. Which is one way of saying that no, you don't miss the instruments here".
Chris Willman in Entertainment weekly (10 Sept) also saw the Todd connection
"Historians among us might wonder if there's a good reason no major rock figure has attempted an all-vocal album since Todd Rundgren's A Cappella in 1985, a moderately amusing if literally long-winded experiment in vocally mimicking real instruments. There's a little of that sort of ear trickery in Medlla; five numbers utilize Rahzel, formerly of the Roots, as a human beat box, and one has frequent Philip Glass vocalist Gregory Purnhagen credited as a "human trombone." But mostly, these voices are meant to sound like voices, whether Bjrk is wailing against the Icelandic Choir's wall of sound or madly multitracking herself like The Matrix's Agent Smith"
"Medulla is far less eccentric than its surface might suggest. Comprised almost in its entirety of voices -- that's right, no instruments, no guitars, no synths, no sequencers, no insistence of drum-driven rhythm -- the album seems at first a minimalist affair, as if Bjork has reduced her art to its barest essentials"
"There are precedents for what Bjork has done here; Kate Bush and her work with the Trio Bulgarka, as represented on the classic "The Sensual World" record, and Todd Rundgren, who produced the aptly- titled "A Capella" album by layering and multi-tracking his own voice, are useful semaphores in this potentially disorienting little world. But Bjork goes a step beyond both of these artists. In fact, if one is able to hear the voices as instruments free of the text they are delivering, one begins to realize how well-orchestrated and dense this music is. Which is one way of saying that no, you don't miss the instruments here".
Chris Willman in Entertainment weekly (10 Sept) also saw the Todd connection
"Historians among us might wonder if there's a good reason no major rock figure has attempted an all-vocal album since Todd Rundgren's A Cappella in 1985, a moderately amusing if literally long-winded experiment in vocally mimicking real instruments. There's a little of that sort of ear trickery in Medlla; five numbers utilize Rahzel, formerly of the Roots, as a human beat box, and one has frequent Philip Glass vocalist Gregory Purnhagen credited as a "human trombone." But mostly, these voices are meant to sound like voices, whether Bjrk is wailing against the Icelandic Choir's wall of sound or madly multitracking herself like The Matrix's Agent Smith"
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