Iceland pop experimentalists múm met while working on a children’s play.
Formed by Gunnar Örn Tynes, Örvar Smárason, and classically trained twin sisters Gyda and Kristín Anna Valtysdóttir in 1997, they soon became electronic key-figures.
múm have released on Morr Music & Fat Cat Records & are one of Iceland’s most important pop outfits. The band’s lineup is in a state of constant change. So is their music.
múm | Toothwheels
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=JVgOohc6v10
As “Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is Okay”, “Finally We Are No One” and “Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know”, the new album “Smilewound” is another example of the band’s art of juxtaposing two conflicting meanings and taking advantage of the energy created through the tension between both.
Sparser in sound than many of its predecessors, “Smilewound” is an airy, relaxed record. The múm-core-duo of Örvar and Gunni doesn’t make you laugh out loud, but it will make you smile often – despite the heavenly voices singing about violence in one form or another in most songs.
múm | Sing Along
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=OsY7UEOb2hM
Musically, múm’s capability to build playful electronic sound-ornaments around simple melodies is in full bloom. And these days they know that trimming the ornamentation can strengthen the melody.
Recorded in, among other places, the band’s practice-space, an old baltic farmhouse and on the kitchen-table after dinner, the album was produced by múm themselves. And being the revolving collective they are, it comes as no surprise that we see the return of former member Gyda.
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múm LIVE
Friday, 27 September 2013 | 21:00 CET
Heimathafen Neukölln | Karl-Marx-Straße 141 | 12043 Berlin/Neukölln
mum.is | heimathafen-neukoelln.de
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