Múm
Finally We Are No One
[Fat Cat; 2002]
Rating: 7.5
The buzz around Múm began early in 2001, and the word on the street
was that another Icelandic band was making music as pretty and epic
as Sigur Rós. Those tuning into the hype were surprised when they
finally heard Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Okay. On their
debut album, Múm sounded like a melodic laptop outfit with a curiosity
about acoustic instruments. Nothing about the record suggested the
word "band." Sure, there were some "la-la" vocals here and there,
a good amount of accordion and the occasional guitar, but Bogdan
Raczynski's last record had all those qualities in equal measure
and he never lost his IDM identity. However Múm were presented,
there was no mistaking the quality of the music.
With their second full-length album Finally We Are No One, Múm
definitely sounds like a 'band', in the traditional sense of the word.
Almost half the tracks feature proper vocals singing songs; the horns,
strings and accordion are even more evident; and the modular synthesizer
patches have been relegated to the background. The band continues to
build its rhythmic foundation around glitch-inspired beats, but the
sound surrounding the clicks and pops is more conventionally musical.
How you feel about this new development will depend on which path you
hoped Múm would follow. If the marching voices that emerged at the
tail end of "There Is a Small Number of Things" were what moved you,
then you'll find Finally We Are No One very much to your liking.
If, on the other hand, you found the sprightly beat programming and
warm synth chords of "I'm 9 Today" and "Awake on a Train" to be the
foundation of what made Yesterday Was Dramatic so great, you'll
find yourself enjoying this one a little less.
To my ears, the closer Múm gets to conventional song structures, the
less appealing the band is. At its heart, Múm is not bestowed with
the gift of melody, and too many of the tunes here come across as
simplistic and trite. "We Have a Map of the Piano" has the same lead
line as the familiar keyboard exercise "Heart and Soul" (I'm not
suggesting they stole the melody-- I doubt the band has even heard
it-- but I can't think of anything else when I listen to this track).
While it adds to the innocent cast of the tune, it does little to
encourage repeat plays. "Don't Be Afraid, You Have Just Got Your Eyes
Closed" and the first half of "K/Half Noise" are similarly powered by
the kind of inane four-note melody a toddler might dream up.
With all that out of the way, the fact remains that this is still a
good album, if not a great one. Despite containing a few tunes that
grate with their simple-minded sweetness, a handful of others are
excellent. Released earlier as a single, "Green Grass of Tunnel" is
far and away their best stab at conventional songwriting, with a
whimsical melody appropriate to the music-box backing and a nice mix
of organ, accordions, and strings. The title track, an instrumental,
also displays a sense of balance, as it moves from dark, crunching
sounds in its first third to a nice melody doubled on violin and
trumpet, before returning to its murky resting place amid gurgles of
distortion at the end. The lengthy closer "The Land Between Solar
Systems" is pretty great, building from near silence to a low-grade
fever pitch, unfolding like an epic Quickspace tune in extreme slow
motion.
I understand that the child's-view angle is a large part of Múm's
appeal, and I don't mean to discount this approach to music-- as a
devoted fan of Nobukazu Takemura, I'd be a hypocrite to argue against
it. But something's missing from Múm's relentless pursuit of beauty
and innocence: a sense of struggle. They're almost too good at making
simple, pretty music at this point, and the tracks content to pursue
these qualities alone come across as fluffy. With the digital aspect
of the sound played down in favor of uncomplicated acoustic melodies,
Múm seems just a bit less substantial.
-Mark Richard-San, May 21st, 2002