Intro November 2001

Interview by Thomas Venker.
Translation from German by José Luís Neves.

Island. múm. und viele andere.Monster of text.

Iceland.múm. und viele andere. Epilog.

Were do I start when I have to assemble 14 interviews in one single article? How did I get myself into this huge task anyway? It all began last May when I met Björk in Hamburg. Once again she talked in an enthusiastic way about Iceland and the allure of the island. I booked my flight the next day. We are now at end of August and I am flying to Reykjavik. Holydays? Yes and No! I am also meeting the Icelandic band múm. Their debut album "Yesterday was dramatic, today is ok" was one of the best electronic albums of 2000. It seemed though that our meeting wasn't meant to be since the band was recording the new album on the northern side of Iceland.

"Hello Thomas. Sorry for writing back so late, the thing is we are recording a new album by a deserted lighthouse in the middle of nowhere and the nearest Internet is a boat ride and tunnel-drive away. We are on the northwestern peninsula of Iceland facing Greenland (we can't see it though). This is the most beautiful part of the country. The nearest small town is called Sudureyri and the little bit bigger town is Isafjordur. We don't know how long we will be here for…Örvar and the múm."

Things took a new turn on the second day. My mobile phone rang and on the other side was Örvar Poreyjarson Smárason. The old generator that was used to power the house were the band was recording the new album didn't work anymore. Bad news for the band, good news for me, we decided to meet at a café in Reykjavik. There we talked about múm, Iceland, music in general and also about the music scene in the island.

múm and the lighthouse.

The phone rings. "Hi! Here is Örvar. We are in the city after all. Let's met at 12 Tónar. It's the most important record shop on the city and it works as the central axe for almost everything that is musical in Reykjavik." Jóhannes, the owner, tries to make costumers as comfortable as possible. 12 Tónar has a very nice atmosphere, with comfortable sofas, coffee is given to costumers, there are also magazines and most importantly CD's that one can listen while enjoying the space surrounding us. Even so, and after a small talk we decide to go to one of the many cafés in Reykjavik. Only 3 members of the band are with me, Krístin Anna Valtysdöttir, Gunnar Tynes and naturally Örvar. Gyda Valtysdöttir apologised but she couldn't come because she as a new boyfriend.

The band members met at the local music school. The two girls were part of the Theatre group and the boys were doing the music for the play. Suddenly the four started to do music together and Kristín and Örvar also became a couple.

múm have released, so far, the album "Yesterday was dramatic, Today is ok" (out on Reykjavik's Thule Musik), a split 10" with Spúnk (another project from Kristín Björk Kristjansdottir, member of the Kitchenmotor collective), several tracks on compilations and a couple of obscure self made cd's and recently two remix albums, "Please smile my noise bleed" (Morr) and "múm-remixed" (Thule). múm start immediately to talk about the recording session done at the lighthouse. Kristín shows me photos of the lighthouse's small house, that a journalist took when he visited them during that period, and also a photo from the generator that they needed to start every morning, and which was responsible for the sudden stop of the recording session when it no longer functioned.

Kristín: Behind the house one could see a small pond with two swans and their little babies. The mountains and the small lake created a beautiful landscape. Very fascinating."

What made you record the album on such a location?

Örvar: The price of a house outside Reykjavik is very low. My brother as a friend that comes from a small village near this bay. He decided to buy it. We heard about it through my brother and were immediately interested. Just the idea of going to such a place seemed fantastic. An old lighthouse in the middle of nowhere transformed into a recording studio.

How long could you work there?

Örvar: More then three weeks. We stayed an extra week and tried to start the generator again…

Could we talk about the album that is going to be released on Fatcat?

Kristín: Sure. We are making all the mixing on our computers at the moment, and in November we are going to a proper studio where we have more equipment. We will improve all the recordings that we've done so far.

So you only took your laptop to the lighthouse? (Collective laugh)

Örvar: The helicopter did 4 trips in order to take all the stuff we needed. The difficult part was that the helicopter couldn't land on the exact spot so we had to transport all the gear with a fish boat the last couple of meters.
Gunnar: We made many friends on the near villages. I don't know why but everybody wanted to help us. One guy took all the stuff on his boat.
Kristín: He considered us as his Hillbillies.
Gunnar: It was a hard trip because there were many rocks, and one could only dock in a specific place, and it was far from the house. When you are in such a place with high mountains and also when there is so much light all day during the summer you are bound to feel the energy. You don't need to sleep that much.

Although the majority of bands in Iceland origin from Reykjavik, the city only as a couple of places were bands like múm can play live. As a consequence the bands don't do many concerts. Who wants to play in the same venue all the time, anyway? The musicians have come to terms with it and they meet each other at local cafés and bars.

The weak infrastructure is also consolidated by the fact that it is almost impossible to live from music when you don't have a record deal outside Iceland like, for instance, Sigur Rós. That is not entirely true though, Kristín told me about the "Dance Circus". "This circus consists of bands that come from inland and move too the city. They always begin by playing cover versions and when they achieve success they start to write their own songs. That is probably the biggest musical scene in Iceland".

For múm it means that they still have to live with their parents, although they don't have to work since they have a record deal with Fatcat that allows them to pursue their bohemian life style (sleep late, drink coffee all day and make music). Örvar doesn't feel happy living at his parent's garage or rehearsing on the cellar of Gunnar's parents house. The price of rents is very high. Why are the prices so high in Reykjavik? Do people in Iceland earn that much money? Kristín: "No, but people work all day long." Gunnar: "It happens because there are not that many people renting a house, the majority buys one. Icelanders have a tendency to own everything, and that makes it very difficult to find cheap rents."

Only two options are available then. The first is to make a good record deal the second is to move outside, like so many Icelanders before (Sigur Rós, Björk, GusGus). The Fatcat record deal is for múm, at least, the beginning of something. Still they want to move to Berlin. Both boys have already lived there for 2 months. Örvar: "We were in Copenhagen last summer and we didn't want to come back, but the girls had to return to school and Copenhagen was also very expensive, so we decided to go to another city. In Berlin we meet Thomas Morr and decided to move there. It is cheap and a really good city to live in."

As soon as the mixing and recording of the new album is ready Kristín and Örvar will move to Berlin, a momentary separation for the band. After a pause múm will re-unite and begin the European Tour to promote the Fatcat release. There is no specific date for this release. múm are very thorough when it comes to their music, and the process of making a song takes a long time, especially the final details. The band compares the recording process with woodwork, you do the main work very fast but the final details take the most time to complete.

Örvar: I think we don't talk about the songs. We go to the studio and we simply play them. When someone as something to add then they simply do it.
Gunnar: We talk about the music in an abstract level, like: "Maybe we should improve this part or maybe we should take this away."
Kristín: I guess we should stop talking about it…"

We should indeed. The café is closing and we should move on to another café.

múm. The last meeting.

In Iceland it is highly possible to meet the same person more than once in the same day. As I went to a café were I was supposed to meet Egill he told me that he was waiting for múm. When they arrived along with their friend Einar, from the band Singapore Sling, they immediately draged me outside. That day was the big day. The German and English football teams were playing against each other. We decided to watch the match together. Örvar took us to a bar were almost all the football fans were from Great Britain and he is, afterall, a big Liverpool fan. During the match we still had time to do some small talk and he told me some curious and funny stories. The most interesting one was related with the release party of their debut album. The rumours that Björk would attend the party spread widely, when the party was over almost every person congratulated them on the fact that Björk liked and applauded their album. He also told me the story behind the release of the remix album on Thule: "We didn't want to release the album but suddenly it was out in the stores. Our record deal was not that good. These sort of things rarely happen in Iceland, the deals are usually based on friendship. I had a chance to attest that when I went to a party at Kristín's (from Kitchenmotors) house. People really enjoy being with each other. These kind of parties work as a warm-up for the rest of the night, since the price of alcohol in Iceland is very high. On my last day I traveled with Örvar and Kristín around the island, they were searching a potential location to make a video. I was amazed by the vast quantity of football fields in Iceland.



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