Mum is a band from Iceland (Gunnar Orn Tynes and Orvar Aoreyjarson Smarason,
and twin sisters Gyda and Kristin Anna Valtysdottir)
that debuted with
Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Ok (Thule, 2000 - Tugboat, 2001 -
Morr Music, 2005),
offering a delicate mixture of glitch electronica, chamber instruments
(accordion, trumpet, bells, clarinet, violin, piano) and
atmospheric vocals.
The texture of I'm 9 Today pivots on subdued piano notes, jumping electronic glitches and manipulated vocals and is carried to an unlikely climax by loud accordion drones.
The ultimate minimalist piece is Ballad Of The Broken Strings, which
basically consists in a wavering accordion tune buried into barely audible
static noise.
Smell Memory is nine minutes of creative percussive sounds, from the
distorted polyrhythm that opens it to the videogames and slot machines that
breathe life into it, to the hip-hop and metallic clangors that close it.
The eight-minute Sunday Night Just Keeps On Rolling is another variation
on the concept of composing music out of percussive sounds, made more
disorienting by contrasting it with ominous drones.
The seven-minute Asleep On A Train takes the same idea but layers it
vertically, with an unstable syncopated beat scoured by accordion and vocal
samples.
Mum's music rarely aims for pathos. The central section of
There Is A Small Number of Things includes a tender
carillon-like piano loop,
and the first half of the nine-minute Awake On A Train is a folkish melody
(with harpsichord-like counterpoint) that transforms into a romantic horn serenade,
but these are brief respites from the prevailing inchoate anarchy.
The Ballad Of The Broken Birdie Records is the only proper song,
a distorted childish voice intoning a simple singalong over a confused
rhythmic carpet. But this is a wild exception to the rule:
Mum does rarely uses "rhythm" in a regular way. Their structures float
apparently without a center of mass both because they have no (melodic)
boundaries and because they lack the traditional rhythmic support.
Mum Remixed (Thule) and Please Smile My Noise Bleed (Morr)
are (terrible) remix albums.
Their second album, the double 10" Finally We Are No One (Fat Cat, 2002),
was less uncompromising in the way it shunned traditional musical formats.
The attention to texture served to build cohesive compositions, as opposed
to merely exploring moods.
The female vocalist whispers in a childish tone the lullaby
Green Grass Of Tunnel Video against relatively stable arrangements
and bouncy rhythm.
We Have a Map of the Piano is just about the opposite: a charming
instrumental that uses the voice as one of the many instrumental attractions.
And Don't Be Afraid You Have Just Got Your Eyes is a purely
instrumental vignette a` la Brian Eno that shares none of the inchoate quality
of the first abum's instrumentals.
The nine-minute K-Half Noise and I Can't Feel My Hand Any More
juxtapose neoclassical melody and creative post-techno beats.
The female vocalist returns to close the album (in an even more languid tone)
with the twelve-minute The Land Between Solar Systems, dotted with
mellower beats and dreamy instruments.
The first album was basically the orchestra fine-tuning the instruments.
The second album was the real symphony.
The first album was a brainy disquisition. The second one was the object
of that disquisition.
Summer Make Good (Fat Cat, 2004)
turned towards more traditional songwriting and arranging, but, alas,
shiftinf the center of mass from the electornic keyboards to
Valtydottir's petulant vocals did little to enhance the appeal of the songs.
The instrumental passages that are supposed to provide the structural support
of Weeping Rock Rock,
The Ghosts You Draw On My Back,
Oh How the Boat Drifts,
Will the Summer Make Good for All of Our Sins
sound meek and amateurish, despite the sparkling production.
The album as a whole comes through as monotonous,
sleepy and, for a band trying to sound poppy, rather unmelodic.
The surreal clockworks of the previous albums have metamorphed into shopworn
toys.
The process is still prevalent over the structure in
Nightly Cares, Sing Me Out the Window and
Island of Children's Children.
Maybe this should have been a three-song EP.
The band did sound poppy on
Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy (Fat Cat, 2007), another stage in Mum's
transition towards the traditional song format. If the
overwrought Blessed Brambles worked as a liaison with the past,
the present was the electroacoustic pop muzak of Dancing Behind My Eyeballs and
They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Luca Battistini)
I Mum sono un gruppo islandese (Gunnar Orn Tynes, Orvar Aoreyjarson
Smarason
e le gemelle Gyda e Kristin Anna Valtysdottir)
che ha debuttato con il doppio LP Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is
Ok (Thule, 2000 - Tugboat, 2001)
proponendo un misto delicato di elettronica glitch, strumenti da camera e
parti vocali d'atmosfera.
Mum Remixed (Thule) e Please Smile My Noise Bleed
(Morr)
sono due album (terribili) di remix.
Il loro secondo disco, il doppio 10" Finally We Are No One
(Fat Cat, 2002),
e' piu' vicino a pop e rock
(Finally We Are No One, We Have a Map of the Piano,
I Can't Feel My Hand Any More, Green Grass Of Tunnel
Video)
ma include anche gli 11 minuti sperimentali di The Land Between
Solar Systems.
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