múm manifest a new, emotive world for us to escape into. Deeper understanding of tone and style paint more than a pretty picture; this is art.
Dispose your superficial understandings of pop. múm are back with a record that perhaps is what some of us deserve right now. The band from Iceland are adored for their incredible, layered pop music that seems to transcend time and space. It is this exact thing they explore with their latest album, History of Silence. They return after 12 years with an album that allows you to enjoy escapism that is imbibed in meaning.
A journey through sound
Since their 2013 album, Smilewound, múm have been…well, mum. Don’t expect this to be a hiatus or something, the band have made it a point to always delve beyond the surface in the music that they make. If you haven’t listened to their music in a closed room or with headphones, you have lost out on a treat. They take their time understanding the structure of the melody that they compose. Then, they master it to a degree of ambience that is otherworldly. What reaches you is purpose to live another day, just through the virtue of music.
When you listen to the heartbeats than open Miss You Dance (the opening single), you can already feel the frisson of the highest degree. Orchestral elements provide the lift, while you explore the complex folds of the song. múm perfected indietronica long ago, but this is a dramatic incision into places you will enjoy getting lost in.
The layers they construct
Lead elements remain strong, while also blending in riveting textures of live, orchestral elements. I don’t think I have ever heard them get combined so well before. It is woven from the same pattern, of different fabric. Gunnar Örn Tynes, Örvar Smárason, Gyda and Kristín Anna Valtysdóttir have perhaps been more instrumental in shaping the indie movement in Iceland than any other outfit ever. As independent artists active from 1997, they surface to depict their notions of the world, or the worlds they want to cocoon around.
Kill the Light doesn’t play as the next song, it gets blended into. If you want to embrace the darkness with the warmth of positive presence, this song is an embodiment of that. múm ensure that there is enough variation in it to reflect a heartbeat, always there but never eerie. Piano notes will accent the conversation, while you can derive a thrill in the pockets of silence they leave between the songs.
Recording new music
How did they arrive at this depth? I feel the process behind it is a lot of the inspiration behind the music. Beginning their work in Sudestudio in Southern Italy, the group has recorded in Reykjavík, Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, New York, and Prague. Maybe every instance of movement and silence has a certain tempo. múm have been able to capture that, and their recurring monologue around it. The result is something moody, expressive and sometimes daunting enough to sit back and just listen to, in awe.
What is surprising to me is how time seems to bend around these tracks. None of these songs extend more than the length of an average pop song (from the 90s and 00s, not recent polished pop). Yet the absence of apparent percussion, soft lyrics and incredible aural understanding blends to create a concoction you will resonate with-if in the right headspace. Even then, it becomes an extended moment of profound thinking.
The deeper premise
As you proceed to the second half of the album, there are deeper layers you can visualise múm running through. Avignon finally prepares you for an emotive rally- it possesses you with emotions you have probably walled yourself off of. History of Silence is well-prepared, it is a postcard that is brought from place to place, from emotion to its escape. It is gentle, but strong and deliberate in places. Move to Only Songbirds Have a Sweet Tooth, you experience the bounty of nature. Not the kind that implicates it through just the ambient sound, but how the experience might be.
This is where pop has to go. As a genre, the mainstream has become complacent in the kind of experiences they want people to have. Nostalgia pruning. Repetitive themes. Elastic relationship concepts and love stories. There is more to how pop can be approached, and this group shows you that the industry doesn’t need to shape your music. Moments should.
Packed with an emotive edge
Growth and real evolution can be heard in how múm have approached this album. There is maturity in the theme they have gone for, the waves they’ve made. Imbibe it like a book should be, read the music. It is a power that they’re harnessing-like they have done from when they formed. A singular focus in mind-to master the themes that they explore and the instruments that can sing the songs they want to.
Onwards and upwards to more:
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Self professed metalhead, moderately well read. If the music has soul, it's whole to me. The fact that my bio could have ended on a rhyme and doesn't should tell you a lot about my personality.
