Madelleine Müller

Short bio

Madelleine Müller is a singer-songwriter, musician and writer living on the scenic island Bornholm in Denmark. After becoming ill with ME/CFS she started writing songs as a way to make sense of all the confusion and grief of losing a life once lived. She recorded all her songs from bed and wheelchair. Her album will be out in late August 2025.

Long bio

Madelleine Müller is a singer-songwriter, musician and writer living on the scenic island Bornholm in Denmark. After becoming ill with ME/CFS she started writing songs as a way to make sense of all the confusion and grief of losing a life once lived. 

Madelleine’s music explores the emotional and psychological aspects evoked by social injustice and of living in a precarious world. She interweaves themes of nostalgia, grief, and hope into her songs. 

Having grown up in a safe commune in Jutland and moved to the paradisiacal Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania when she was six, the longing to preserve the innocence of childhood is also a major theme in her writing. 

In her forthcoming album (out late August  2025), Madelleine Müller seeks to convey the experience of a broken body, deteriorating slowly with no sense of control. She explores the feelings and experience of when life becomes precarious, having to face stigma and discrimination, and of observing life differently when you are no longer a part of it. 

Madelleine recorded her album when she was mainly bedridden, only able to record a few lines at a time, on a home-recording setup, while lying in her reclinable wheelchair or in bed. This is also why you will not see her perform live. 

Musically, Madelleine marries a contemplative lyrical universe with classic, dark Nordic sounds, emotive melodies and sensitive acoustic instrumentation. Her inspiration stems from various acoustic genres of music around the globe, from Kenya’s Ayub Ogada, to Uganda’s Geoffrey Oryema and South Africa’s choral traditions, to Ireland’s traditional flutes and Sean Nos singing, Portugal’s Fado song tradition, Canada’s and America’s folk singer songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Carole King and Denmark’s own Kim Larsen, as well as jazz flautists like Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk.

One listener describes Madelleine’s debut single, Salem, as: “Heartachingly beautiful, raw, and profound” and another listener wrote: “Salem cracked something open in me — something that’s been waiting, aching, unheard. Listening, I wept. Not just for myself, but for all of us who have lived years in beds, behind closed doors, whispered about, disbelieved, misdiagnosed, or simply erased…. This is more than a song. It’s a testimony. It’s protest. It’s sacred remembrance.”