Mum

Beneath their cute, nymph-like dulcet, Múm creates a cryptic undercurrent of well-crafted demur and longing. Their latest album Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know contains some of the band's best constructed tracks as well as some of their most uninspired, unoriginal efforts. Múm tones down the electro glitch laptop blip fury dripping all over their last album Go Go Smear Poison Ivy and instead opt for more organic instrumentation. Specifically, they showcase the most organic instrument of all; human vocals (an effort that seems like a gamble considering the exit of their trademark impish vocalist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir). Each track contains a flourishing combination of Múm’s complex, detail-oriented musical experimentation topped with unusual, almost fantastical lyrics aimed at basic human conditions. Some of the stories Múm offers are almost too cute and ironically whimsical to take seriously. All things considered, the band in question is a staple in a country that diverts planned pathway construction due to the possibility of harming areas inhibited by thirteen different types of elves…

Múm’s standout tracks occur when they blend childlike nonsensical verbiage, organic instruments and electronic snowflake blips and bleeps to create songs difficult to deconstruct. “The Smell Of Today Is Sweet Like Breastmilk In The Wind” may be one of the weirdest song names on the band's discography and consequentially one of their most ambitious. The song contains multiple layers of well over a dozen different instruments and computer driven samples, however, counterintuitively remains light and accessible. Sometimes, like on “Prophecies and Reversed Memories,” too many instruments overcomplicate and bastardize the usual Múm effect - a mouth harp has no place anywhere in the universe of credible music.

“Show Me” is a well-constructed playful track that asks, “Show me the way you worship little things.” The song is reminiscent of the clever demur on Múm's Finally We Are No One. Organs, key boards, acoustic guitar, lap top drums, horns and dreamy coed vocals coalesce to form a song of tender darkness, requesting for someone who finds solace in the minutia of everyday occurrences to show curious cynics the way. Similarly, “Illuminated” offers toy box melancholy, possessing a winter inspired sound scope. Each instrument is a collection of frost that possesses a corresponding pattern to its adjacent arrangement. And “The Last Shapes of Never” stands out as the album's somber track, opening with minor chords finger plucked on an acoustic guitar with heartbreak wails from an accordion. Church choir vocals and a piano smoothly creep in to complement a song about “letting go” to create the shortest and most touching track on the album.

“Hullabullabalú” and “Kay-Ray-Ku-Ku-Ko-Kex” are the album's most vocally ambitious numbers, taking influence from Björk’s vocally driven Medulla and wintery Vespertine. “Hullabullabalú” offers vocal pop hooks at nearly every turn, creating a song almost scary in its catchiness. And “Kay-Ray-Ku-Ku-Ko-Kex,” although akin to Björk’s “Vökuró,” ultimately emphasizes a more playful nature, saving it from blatant thievery and producing a respectable homage.

“A River Don’t Stop To Breath,” “Blow Your Nose” and “Ladies Of The New Century” are such similar tracks they almost become ineffectual. The three exist in a mix of slow-moving lumps of boring, sounding like watered-down versions of tracks far superior in detail and creativity. “Ladies of the New Century” has a tinge more merit to offer than the others because of its almost completely organic nature, however, the song leaves the album feeling exhausted.

The main message, and one of the strong points of the album, comes early on with the title track “Sing Along.” “Sing along to songs you don’t know/ you’ll never know what could’ve been / if you don’t sing along.” The song explores every instrumental theme the album has to offer; chimes, bells, guitars, organic bass, laptop glitch percussion. It’s heartrending and reassuring at the same time, as if the band is recollecting moments of their own regret in order to warn listeners not make the same mistakes. “You are so beautiful to us / we want to keep you as our pets” is illustrative of Múm at their best: unique, cute and cryptic sound and imagery that resemble their intrinsic Icelandic sense of imagination. The album, despite some boring gloomy sameness, is confidently sincere in a way only Múm can deploy. Sing along, even if you don’t know the words.

by: Bene Garcia

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Listen To: Múm “Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know”

October 13, 2009 Art, The Rathaus

Mum

Beneath their cute, nymph-like dulcet, Múm creates a cryptic undercurrent of well-crafted demur and longing. Their latest album Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know contains some of the band’s best constructed tracks as well as some of their most uninspired, unoriginal efforts. Múm tones down the electro glitch laptop blip fury dripping all over their last album Go Go Smear Poison Ivy and instead opt for more organic instrumentation. Specifically, they showcase the most organic instrument of all; human vocals (an effort that seems like a gamble considering the exit of their trademark impish vocalist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir). Each track contains a flourishing combination of Múm’s complex, detail-oriented musical experimentation topped with unusual, almost fantastical lyrics aimed at basic human conditions. Some of the stories Múm offers are almost too cute and ironically whimsical to take seriously. All things considered, the band in question is a staple in a country that diverts planned pathway construction due to the possibility of harming areas inhibited by thirteen different types of elves…

Múm’s standout tracks occur when they blend childlike nonsensical verbiage, organic instruments and electronic snowflake blips and bleeps to create songs difficult to deconstruct. “The Smell Of Today Is Sweet Like Breastmilk In The Wind” may be one of the weirdest song names on the band’s discography and consequentially one of their most ambitious. The song contains multiple layers of well over a dozen different instruments and computer driven samples, however, counterintuitively remains light and accessible. Sometimes, like on “Prophecies and Reversed Memories,” too many instruments overcomplicate and bastardize the usual Múm effect – a mouth harp has no place anywhere in the universe of credible music.

“Show Me” is a well-constructed playful track that asks, “Show me the way you worship little things.” The song is reminiscent of the clever demur on Múm’s Finally We Are No One. Organs, key boards, acoustic guitar, lap top drums, horns and dreamy coed vocals coalesce to form a song of tender darkness, requesting for someone who finds solace in the minutia of everyday occurrences to show curious cynics the way. Similarly, “Illuminated” offers toy box melancholy, possessing a winter inspired sound scope. Each instrument is a collection of frost that possesses a corresponding pattern to its adjacent arrangement. And “The Last Shapes of Never” stands out as the album’s somber track, opening with minor chords finger plucked on an acoustic guitar with heartbreak wails from an accordion. Church choir vocals and a piano smoothly creep in to complement a song about “letting go” to create the shortest and most touching track on the album.

“Hullabullabalú” and “Kay-Ray-Ku-Ku-Ko-Kex” are the album’s most vocally ambitious numbers, taking influence from Björk’s vocally driven Medulla and wintery Vespertine. “Hullabullabalú” offers vocal pop hooks at nearly every turn, creating a song almost scary in its catchiness. And “Kay-Ray-Ku-Ku-Ko-Kex,” although akin to Björk’s “Vökuró,” ultimately emphasizes a more playful nature, saving it from blatant thievery and producing a respectable homage.

“A River Don’t Stop To Breath,” “Blow Your Nose” and “Ladies Of The New Century” are such similar tracks they almost become ineffectual. The three exist in a mix of slow-moving lumps of boring, sounding like watered-down versions of tracks far superior in detail and creativity. “Ladies of the New Century” has a tinge more merit to offer than the others because of its almost completely organic nature, however, the song leaves the album feeling exhausted.

The main message, and one of the strong points of the album, comes early on with the title track “Sing Along.” “Sing along to songs you don’t know/ you’ll never know what could’ve been / if you don’t sing along.” The song explores every instrumental theme the album has to offer; chimes, bells, guitars, organic bass, laptop glitch percussion. It’s heartrending and reassuring at the same time, as if the band is recollecting moments of their own regret in order to warn listeners not make the same mistakes. “You are so beautiful to us / we want to keep you as our pets” is illustrative of Múm at their best: unique, cute and cryptic sound and imagery that resemble their intrinsic Icelandic sense of imagination. The album, despite some boring gloomy sameness, is confidently sincere in a way only Múm can deploy. Sing along, even if you don’t know the words.

by: Bene Garcia

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