Dazed and Confused # 66 June 2000
múm (Four Piece Electronic Band)
After Örvar Smarason found a tape of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient
Workson 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 Kristin and Gyda Valtysdottir, and all four of them gathered around
a computer in a room full of strange old instruments to start experimentig.
múm was born. "We didn't know what múm meant in English when we chose
the name," admits the very soft spoken Kristin. "It just sounds nice:
moom..mooom, like the Moomins,you know. I don't think we would have chosen
it if we had known what it meant." 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
- múm have since been asked for remixes by Emiliana Torrini and Sigur
Rós, amongst others. They were recently invited to join Unusual Bedfellows,
a scheme aimed at creating unusual collaborative works. They have been
paired with a local surrealist writer and his opera singer wife to create
an electronic and string score to an operatic tale. As soon as that is
done múm are of to Copenhagen. "It's a nice place. It's very mellow and
sunny so we are going to record our album there and have a fun summer."
