Múm are yet another melancholy, offbeat delight hailing from a country that has no trouble churning them out - Iceland. Comprising Gunnar Örn Tynes, Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason, and classically trained twin sisters Gyða and Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, they formed while working on a children's play. Given their musical style is brooding atmospheric post-rock mixed with knob-twiddling Aphex Twin madness, I'd love to go to an Icelandic nativity.
Nightly Cares is a taster for the forthcoming third album, and I Can't Get No Satisfaction it certainly isn't. Building gradually from so-quiet-it's-barely-there keyboard, before picking up rumbling drums, minimalist strings and breathy, baby-like female vocals, it's almost over before you realised how very lovely it all was. It's understated stuff, and for me it does a good job in persuading me I really should get the album.
B-Side Once A Shiny Morning Puddle is positively speed-metal in comparison. It sounds like Aphex Twin would if he'd forgotten his sequencers and had to make do with a kids' music room. A chaotic delight, every bit as odd as the title would suggest. Anyway, for this week at least, my new favourite band is Múm.
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