Mum

Mum oozes cuteness. Their music is full of cheery electronic chirps and little tinkling bells - their voices are childlike and innocent - and darn it, go to their website, and tell me that they don't just *look* cute. (Or check the cover of Belle & Sebastian's "Fold your hands child..." as the Mum twins grace its cover.) I found Mum the same way that I suspect others did - because they're Icelandic, and their name seemed to come up a lot in tandem with current Icelandic cultural emissaries Sigur Ros. And while to me they both manage to achieve some of the same elements of sonic peace, they go about it in rather different ways. Where Sigur Ros seems to breathe magical life from some kind of ethereal spirit world, Mum creates their environment of lush softness from electronics, thoughtfully supplemented by organic instrumentation like cello, piano, and if I'm hearing right, melodica. I bought what turns out to be a limited edition Icelandic version of the album when I was in Reykjavik - but there's an English language release as well, titled "Finally we are no one".

Links of note:

Mum homepage: http://www.randomsummer.com.

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.