múm
Euphono Records
(2009)
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A country of about 300,000 people, Iceland has produced quite a few of the most imaginative and peculiar music in the past two decades, charming listeners with the likes of Björk and Sigur Rós, Icelanders who have become world-class musicians in their critical and commercial success. Given the other-wordliness of Iceland’s popular music, it’s easy to imagine the volcanically active country as a mysterious, fantastic place that’s removed from its own political and economic crises. Last year’s kreppa, however, directed the world’s attention to Iceland’s susceptibility to the rest of the world’s financial ills. With the failure of three of its major banks and a new government coalition, Iceland faces its own cultural and political tremors, the occurence of which have fortunately not dismayed its cultural output.

Twelve years ago, múm (pronounced like “gloom”) began as a two-piece band of Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason, who were later joined by twin sisters  Gyða and Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir. Since then, the band has attained larger numbers and several rotating members, creating quirky pop songs that vacillate between electronic and acoustic arrangements. As often is the case with Iceland’s musicians, múm has been described as dreamy and fairy-like, which isn’t saying much given the band’s prodigious talents in creating evocative, often orchestral pieces that go beyond the preciousness that their name and song titles may suggest. In Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know, múm performs its songs in much a communal spirit, as if its members were sitting beside a campfire and singing melodically to whatever instruments they happen to chance upon. Much of the songs here are sung as a choir, and true to the album title, much of the vocal work sounds simple and spontaneous, like the la-la-la’s of “If I Were A Fish” or the cheery refrain of “Sing Along.”

The singsongy vocals of the first two tracks make for a slow start to the record, barely filling up the space between the gentle piano and horn arrangements. In “Prophecies and Reversed Memories,” múm pick up speed and play a rhythmic bit with snare and mouth harp that combines IDM-influenced ambience and organic-sounding acoustic parts. “The Smell of Today Is Sweet Like Breast Milk in the Wind” make use of some eighties electro, Graceland-era Paul Simon and an orchestra of peculiar-sounding instruments that make múm difficult to describe adequately. “Húllabbalabbalúú” treads equally curious territory with rotating anthem and build-up of drums that sounds as hopeful as it is triumphant. In “Kay-Ray-Kú-Kú-Kó-Kex,” the band sounds best when they seem to be singing about nothing in particular, emphasizing harmonies and acoustics that speak an ungrammatical, poignant language.

Spread out in its youthful earnestness, múm’s new record is reportedly a response to the civil unrest and political turbulence of Iceland, and the spirit and feeling with which the band performs expresses a search for warmth and harmony that may have been lacking in the past year. Although their sound may not be as big as that of fellow Icelanders Sigur Rós, múm embraces musical escapism in a way that attempts to resolve rather than distract from the difficulties of recent times.

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http://mum.is/

http://www.myspace.com/mumtheband