Seven magazien April 2002

Interview by Tony Marcus.



Tony Marcus meets Iceland's latest electronica sensation, the very hip, very quiet and very, very good múm.

múm: band from Iceland. Very hip (they have some pop star fans - can't be bothered to tell you who unless you really wan to hear about Björk and Jarvis again). Very quiet (their music is a bit internal, there's no shouting, distorted guitars, pop/memorable choruses) and very much a certain kind of indie (in the past they've made their own little films, stapled together their own little comic, and múm members -near identical twins Kristín and Gyda were featured on the cover of Belle and Sebastian's "Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant").

The basic múm sound on their soon-to-be released second LP "Finally we are no one" is Boards of Canada/generic pretty "electronica" plus childlike, drifting vocals a la Julie Cruise (as opposed to a full-woman Janis-style bellow). The basic múm sound is also flatlined/drugged post-rock with subtle guitar licks and…actually it probably isn't fair to talk about a "basic múm sound" - their music is complex. They use electronic/sample textures and they also play guitar, cello, accordion, glockenspiel and use both electronic drums (often softly distorted) and real drums (played softly). It's hard to tell, when you listen, which bits are electronic.

"You are not supposed to be thinking about that when you listen," says Gyda, "how it was made" - you should be inside the music."

Ideally, says múm you should listen with headphones - but what band wouldn't want such undivided attention? Anyway if you do put the headphones on…what do you get? Well the core aesthetic seems to be a kind of arty ambience - the basic múm track is minimal, vaguely experimental (anyone for a soft cello sawing over a distorted Aphex-beat?) and extremely pretty. Pretty in a tinkling and sparkling sort of way that suggests nursery sounds or the inner child - perhaps there's a psychedelic aesthetic at work.

"We don't do acid or mushrooms," says Örvar. "Preferably something softer than that."

Traditionally - in pop/music culture anyway - musicians have to take acid and mushrooms before grown women start singing like angels/children and give LP's titles that suggest meditation and related practices.

"The title of the LP, It's about when you go into yourself," offers Örvar. "and you are no one."

múm reckon "Finally we are no one" took them about two years, on and off, to write, produce and record. Engineer Valgeir Sigurdsson who worked on Björk's "Vespertine" also worked on the LP. A large chunk of the record was made when the band spent a few months in a lighthouse on the North-West coast of Iceland - an apparently desolate but beautiful place. They liked it there. "I really connected with the place," says Gunni. "We didn't have television. We didn't have a phone. We didn't have any people. If we wanted to buy something we had to go get to a small town, we had to get there by boat. It felt great. I thought. This is how we are supposed to live." So what are múm like? Well, there's four of them, they're all early to mid-twenties, they finish each other's sentences and they're kind of happy right now. Being in a band suits them and they like it. "It's really nice," says Gunni. "and it's something you could easily combine with a lot of other interests - some work or some other art form." They also look forward to touring. "It's fun," says Örvar, "to have the opportunity to travel around and meet different people and play in different places. It's good fun."

múm are at that stage in their career when there's no doubt. Their LP is pretty damn good so it's fair to guess they're in full creative flow. And there's no real angst or agony in their work - the music might be interior but everything's pretty sweet once you get inside - kind of like Aphex Twins "Selected Ambient Works Vol.2" re-spun with a little candy-floss. Or Future 3 (genius, hyper-delicate Copenhagen ambient electronic act) rebooted with live instruments.

What else is there about múm - they don't make statements with the way they dress - frocks, jeans, trainers, Japanese plimsolls, kind of clean and poetic but not obviously magazine-influenced. And they don't like to talk about influences ("Oh we have so many Cd's, we listen to so much music…"). Squeezed hard (I ask them the question about three times) and they variously name-check Paul Auster, Will Oldham, Woody Allen and Augustus Pablo. They've got high-art taste in pop culture - maybe there's something a little précieuse going down.

"I don't want our record hyped," says Gyda. "It's not something you listen to for a few months and then forget like a lot of records. I want it to be something people will be playing after fiver years."

There's also a cultural thing here - -Iceland isn't England (fact). The only things pop media regularly note about Iceland is that everyone gets drunk a lot and sometimes Björk turns up at people's parties or a good bar.

"That's the basics," - says Örvar.

There must be marked cultural differences between Iceland/Northern Europe and the UK. I ask múm what they like doing.

Kristín: "We go to movies, read books, play games."

Games? (I have visions of weird adult-sex play, múm the first ambient sex act)

Gyda: "We have a lot of good friends we go out and play games with."

Like what?

Gunni: "I don't know if you have it in England, it's sort of a game you play outside."

Kristín: "It's a combination of hide-and-seek and chasing someone."

Örvar: "You have a post in the middle and somebody has to be it."

Gyda: "It's complicated."

What else do múm do?

Two of them (Örvar and Kristín) now live in Berlin - they go to clubs were they can hear dubby techno (which they like) and also "the quietest club in the world" - which happens every month, invite by email. "It's not advertised but it's always full," says Örvar. "We played there. It's a nice club." Gyda is still at college at Reykjavik (studying cello, she says she rates Shostakovich), Gunnar also lives in Reykjavik.

Conclusion - múm: young, arty, semi-electronic, precious and ambient. And fond of outdoor games.



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