New York Times July 2002

Review by Kelefa Sanneh.



Icelandic Murmurs, Cyberpunk Rhythms

When a band walks onstage, the audience usually applauds. But on Friday night, when the Icelandic group múm took the stage at the Knitting Factory, you could also hear another sound, one more in keeping with múm's music: "Shhh."

The band consists of two sisters, Gyda Valtysdottir and Kristin Anna Valtysdottir, and two men, Gunnar Orn Tynes and Ovar Poreyjarson Smarason. The Valtysdottir sisters provide all the singing (although much of it is closer to murmuring), and all four members used a variety of tools to create their slow, insinuative tracks, sometimes switching instruments in midsong.

A few months ago múm released its second album, "Finally We Are No One." The group finds elegant ways to mix acoustic and electronic sounds: the Valtysdottir sisters often sing so quietly that all you can hear is the clicks of consonants, mingling with the clicks of the rhythm tracks. The songs swell up and then fade away, with melodies that are familiar without quite being catchy; this is the kind of album that can charm you without ever invading your space. In some sense múm makes computer music: that is, music that sounds best when it's coming out of a personal computer, accompanied by a clacking keyboard and a rumbling hard drive.

Onstage the group was just as self-effacing, although not quite so suave. Kristin Anna Valtysdottir had some problems with pitch; when it came time for a hypnotic flight of fancy called "Green Grass of Tunnel," she was content merely to approximate the tune.

Still, it was fun to see a less placid version of múm. A couple of guest drummers sat in, improvising raucous parts on top of the most hectic programmed rhythm tracks. And there were even a few moments of high drama, as when Gyda Valtysdottir's cello and Mr. Smarason's glockenspiel were upstaged by a thunderous burst that sounded like a splintered string quartet, coming from - where else? - someone's laptop.



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