Múm

Múm has the same creak-chic as Sparklehorse and the dying music box delicacy of Björk's Vespertine. They've got the glacial sweep of Radiohead or Sigur Ros (though their scope is more modest) and timid Nintendo blips and beeps that skitter and skate over crackling accordions and other more organic electronic...

By Ben Mercer

August 1, 2002

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Múm has the same creak-chic as Sparklehorse and the dying music box delicacy of Björk's Vespertine. They've got the glacial sweep of Radiohead or Sigur Ros (though their scope is more modest) and timid Nintendo blips and beeps that skitter and skate over crackling accordions and other more organic electronic chimes. In short: as brittle as a thin sheet of ice, and as plainly beautiful, too. Soggy and otherworldly like a slightly waterlogged orange Nerf ball. Múm--a, you guessed it, Icelandic quartet--is the author of the loveliest accidental space radio transmissions of all time, though its songs are set in a simpler world, where activities and emotions converge seamlessly as if in the mind of a young child or in the heart of a dream. Things are both somber and fantastic, pianos equal solar systems and a sleep is the same as a swim. The group has thankfully decided to leave its craggy home and has officially touched down (from airplane, spaceship or submarine?) on U.S. soil this summer for its first slew of gigs in the country. And all on the heels of the up-and-coming band's second album, Finally We Are No One, which would seem a vastly inappropriate title, but it instead blends well with the band's mysterious naïveté.

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