***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Múm were formed in 1997 by Gunnar Örn Tynes, Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason, and classically trained twin sisters Gyða and Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, they met while working on a children's play. Örvar began to do music when his parents bought their first computer. He needed a tune for a game he was programming on BASIC. Since then his love for bleeps as never diminished. Kristín and Gyða started to play piano and cello at a tender age, and when both were 9 years old. After Örvar found a tape of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works on the floor at school, he had to re-think the boundaries of composition. "It changed my life," he says with tongue firmly in cheek. Up until then, Örvar had been playing in a rock band with fellow electronica convert Gunnar Tynes. Changing tack they joined up with classically trained twin sisters Kristín Anna and Gyða , and all four of them gathered around a computer in a room full of strange old instruments to start experimenting. múm was born. They were given a chance by Reykjavik's Thule Records to go into the studio and put together their extraordinary album, "Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK". Sampling extensively from their environment - using clanking cutlery or closing doors as percussion.
"Finally We Are No One" took them about two years, on and off, to write, produce and record. Engineer Valgeir Sigurdsson who worked on Björk's "Vespertine" also worked on the LP. A large chunk of the record was made when the band spent a few months in a lighthouse on the North-West coast of Iceland - an apparently desolate but beautiful place. They liked it there. "I really connected with the place," says Gunni. "We didn't have television. We didn't have a phone. We didn't have any people. If we wanted to buy something we had to go get to a small town, we had to get there by boat. It felt great. I thought. This is how we are supposed to live."
Gyða left the band to focus on her studies at the Academy of Arts in Iceland before Múm's third album, Summer Make Good, arrived in spring 2004; the band rounded out the year with the Dusk Log EP. The next two years found Múm on the road. In 2005, the group collaborated with the National Dutch Chamber Orchestra at Amsterdam's Holland Festival on a piece inspired by the works of composer Iannis Xenakis. Múm returned to the studio the following year, and in the interim released a live album, The Peel Session, which was originally recorded in 2002 by the BBC. Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir left múm in January of 2006 to pursue a solo career under the name Kria Brekkan. For 2007's Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, the band was down to founding members Tynes and Smárason, who enlisted the help of guitarist/vocalist/violinist Ólöf Arnalds, trumpet/keyboard player Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson, vocalist/cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, percussionist Samuli Kosminen, and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mr. Silla.
Currently múm are founding members Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason and for touring and recording, this line-up is expanded to include their friends Ólöf Arnalds (violin / viola / guitar / vocals), Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson (trumpet / pianette / moog / whistling), Hildur Guðnadóttir (cello / vocals), Mr. Silla (Vocals / various) and Finlander, Samuli Kosminen (drums / percussion). On May 22, 2009 during a concert in Burgos (Spain) múm played songs from their upcoming album Sing Along to songs Don't Know. They announced that it will be published on August 2009.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Mum - Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK ( 00 ^ 148mb)
Yesterday Was Dramatic -- Today Is OK blends equal parts early Aphex Twin atmosphere, glitchy clicks reminiscent of Autechre, and dramatic musical elements that evoke the sorrow and glory of compatriot's Sigur Rós. They allow their songs to stretch out into lush, lengthy arrangements as a synthetic accordion mingles with rolling beats, icy analog effects, and the occasional female voice humming or singing quietly. Melodicas, glockenspiels, and other exotic instruments spur recurring motifs of sadness and joy. The music is effortlessly timeless and thoroughly engrossing, in short this album is an unmitigated, accessible masterpiece.
01 - I'm 9 Today (4:42)
02 - Smell Memory (9:21)
03 - There Is A Number Of Small Things (6:31)
04 - Random Summer (3:17)
05 - Asleep On A Train (7:17)
06 - Awake On A Train (9:23)
07 - The Ballad Of The Broken Birdie Records (5:25)
08 - The Ballad Of The Broken String (4:45)
09 - Sunday Night Just Keeps On Rolling (8:11)
10 - Slow Bicycle (8:41)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Mum - Finally We Are No One (02 ^ 117mb)
Múm is very interested in the music of sound, but Finally We Are No One never sounds like a difficult record; if it's not the instruments sounding naïve or folksy (in good ways), the lisping, childlike vocals are bound to prompt adjectives like adorable and precious. "Green Grass of Tunnel" has the sweet melancholia, coloring-book hip-hop, and slowly shifting chords of poptronica producers like isan or Boards of Canada, and also trades on the wide-eyed fairy-tale qualities of Björk. Several individual passages of songs strike an evocative chord, like the string quartet, piano, warm synthesizers, and percussion rumblings of "K/Half Noise" combining to recall the quieter portions of Tortoise'."
01 - Sleep/Swim (0:50)
02 - Green Grass Of Tunnel (4:51)
03 - We Have A Map Of The Piano (5:19)
04 - Don't Be Afraid,You Have Just Got Your Eyes Closed (5:43)
05 - Behind Two Hills,,,,A Swimming Pool (1:08)
06 - K/Half Noise (8:41)
07 - Now There's That Fear Again (3:56)
08 - Faraway Swimmingpool (2:55)
09 - I Can't Feel My Hand Anymore, It's Alright, Sleep Still (5:40)
10 - Finally We Are No One (5:07)
11 - The Land Between Solar Systems (11:58)
No comments:
Post a Comment