Mum come from Iceland where there are more people than trees and apparently more talented musicians than people.

The running theory goes that because so much of the year is perpetual twighlight due to the nation's proximity to the arctic circle, that there is a consistent vibe in all the music coming out of the place. This vibe is apparently heavily influenced by a sort of hoovering between night and day and by extension, between dreaming and waking.

Anyway, Mum embodies this better than any other Icelandic group to me. They are pure magic. They'll sample the sound of ice melting and make a song out of it... and it's good.

Then they loop their voices in a way that makes you sure that you've heard them singing in a dream sometime when you were a child or perhaps in a film strip they made you watch in grammar school that tickled you into daydream that melted fluidly into naptime.

Finally We Are No One (2nd albumn) is more melodic and has more elaborate instrumentation than Summer Make Good (3rd albumn) or Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today is Okay (1st) which are both more rythmic.

I prefer their gently haunting melodies to their mystically vibrating rythm pieces... but that's just me.

If Julie Cruise singing Angelo Badalamenti's songs had a baby with Music for Films era Brian Eno and that baby was allowed to play with Bjork's Drum Machine... you'd start to approximate Mum.

With its slow building ambience, old world influences pillaging a list of bizarre and ancient instruments too numerous to mention, and frail vocals, Múm has produced a truly zen CD. As epic as it is fragile, there's a touch of spaghetti-western-final-gun-battle score, over the top but in their own nice way quality to almost every track but cut with an Amelie softness. Most people's enjoyment of this band will no doubt depend on what effect the lead vocals have subjectively. To some, she may sound like a broken-winged angel pleading for God's help in line with a same Bjork dealing with Beth Gibbons' emotions, but to others she may just be a little too Elmo or Robin, Kermit's nephew, to break through to a new plane of depression and wonder. Or she could be both and that's why you like it. It's a musical yin and yang.

Why are Icelandic musicans so creative? With the exception of Beastie Boy-ripoffs Quarashi, musicians in Iceland just seem to do things right. From Sigur Ros to Bjork to Mum, they just know how to invoke emotions hidden deep inside like no other. Maybe it's because of the cold, sterile nature of their surroundings they feel a need to explore and communicate through the warmth of emotive, intelligent music. Or maybe there's just something in the water over there. Either way, Mum's new album Summer Make Good is a gorgeous voyage through the oceans of serenity.

Summer Make Good opens with "Hu Viss - A Ship" and "Weeping Rock, Rock," a song reminscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven and sets the pace for rest of the album-ominous and brooding yet offering a small ray of light. This anchor of hope is provided by Kristin Anna Valtysdottir's tender vocals moving in and out like small waves of tranquility while treacherous floods capsize you to the ocean floor.

It's no coincidence these songs sound more like melancholic water lullabies than the jubilant ditties found on Finally We Are One and Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Was Ok. The songs were written in a remote lighthouse in Galtarviti and then recorded in an empty weather station and a lightkeeper's cabin below another lighthouse. Sounds from these eerie locations are dispersed throughout Summer Make Good creating a level of natural atmospheric bliss amongst spectral electronics.

While Valtysdottir does sing partially in English and Icelandic, like fellow Icelandic musicians, Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros and Bjork, there is no need to know what is actually being said. The vocals are used more as an instrument than as a poetic device. Emotions are evoked without any sad tales of broken hearts and slashed wrists-just soft whispers spoken in the most innocent, delicate soprano voice.

A project by the few beautiful people from Iceland. It seems like every artist that comes out of Iceland never really leaves it, wherever they are located in the world. Like this album for example, it was recorded in all sorts of places with the help of people from all kinds of nationalities, but I cannot help and imagine myself situated in a warm house that is in a very small, isolated, distant land.

The music is a lot more analog and acoustic then I would have imagined, so it really feels infused with human touch, to the point of having a sexy sway. It feels like a gathering of strange nature creatures who know how to play music, very surreal.

On top of everything they made it seem like it was a gathering of very good friends, and it feels like the musicians are supporting each other with great drive.

The whole album kind of takes up, in its own unique way, one of the 'major' recording concepts in todays music: a layered wall of sound. The idea is basically make it sound more menacing and powerful and be able to stuff the entire stereo wall with lots and lots of NOISE. Only this Mum album doesn't sound very compressed, so even though there is so much happening, and so many instruments used, it >feels< very quiet, great contrasts.

Super. Waiting for new Boards of Canada album...

(sorry for bad english)

I discovered Mum like 4 weeks ago, and fell in love with their enchanting melodies and sounds. I couldnt stop listening Green grass of tunnel for days! And I always listened their other tracks while making art designs. Mostly my favourite tracks where the ones with the cute little girl voice, so when i heard this album had a lot of singing, I was so exited.

Yes, this album is still Mum, but not as creative as their other albums. Yes, most tracks here have that weird baby singing (as I hoped for), but.. theres no enchanting melody. Most of their tracks are pretty much the same, they only differ in sounds, which are not as catchy as their other albums. There are 1-2 good tracks here tho.

I hope they do much better for their next album. I hardly find good music that inspire me in these days now. I still love you Mum ;)