Meredith Monk - "Walking Song." This is one track in a collection of solos, duets, and small ensemble works for voice. While Meredith Monk is often considered a classical composer and performer, what she really is is a modern master of innovation in the language of singing. Monk incorporates what she terms "extended vocal technique" into her composition, almost always avoiding actual lyrics. The palette of sounds in many of her works are constrictive and percussive sounds, and at times it seems that she enjoys straddling the divide between phonation and pure exhalation, as in this song—a duet with colleague Katie Geissinger, which was featured in the Coen Brothers' film The Big Lebowski [remember a nude Julianne Moore, flying overhead on wires and slamming paint onto a canvas below?]. "Walking Song" sounds like the soundtrack to a hotel-room lesbian flick, but the rest of Volcano Songs is more panoramic in its exploration of the voice as an instrument. Witness "Three Heavens and Hells," a work for four voices [in this recording, all female] based on a child's poem.

There are three heavens and hells:
People heaven and hell.
Animal heaven and hell.
Things heaven and hell.

Heaven. Hell.
What do the three heavens and hells look like?

They are all the same.

The lyrics are simple, but it's what's between the lyrics that makes this one of Monk's most expressive works. My co-worker says it sounds like a herd of sheep being slain. With music like that, it's no wonder she has been a favorite of Björk's since at least the late 90's, when she performed Monk's "Gotham Lullaby" at the Union Chapel with the Brodsky Quartet.

MP3> Download Björk with the Brodsky Quartet - "Gotham Lullaby."

We're very likely to hear similar noises on Medúlla. Apparently the song "Ancestors" features Björk joining wailing and moaning with some hacking from Tagaq. I've got to get back to some serious, serious work, but I thought that in closing I should mention that I've seen Meredith Monk completely naked [Jesus, Meredith. Ever hear of an Epilady?]. That would be suprising if she weren't so invested in "interdisciplinary performance." Her official website says this:

Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her ground breaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words.

+ Audio Interview with Meredith Monk on American Mavericks