Go Go Smear that Poison Ivy - Múm Album Review

múm

Album Review

Iceland isn't really a country acclaimed for its influences on the worlds music scene. Currently Bjork is the only artist that could be classed as a house hold name for many, finding herself swimming in a sea of mediocre, under achieving Icelandic electronic art music and synthpop practitioners.

Mum, a band from the barren lands of boiling geysers, is a team of ever changing collaborative forces, drawing together the expansive and ambitious minds of many a skilled percussionist, classically trained musicians both string and brass and the new age minds of electronica impresarios.

The strangely titled 'Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy' is an album making a statement, summing up the bands colourful, playful nature and forward thinking experimental hypothesis. Listening to the albums content might draw you to the conclusion that Mum are just a group of new age hippies on some sort of trip but infact the band are so much more than that taking their own individual skills and blending them in to something special.

Track 'Marmalade Fires' sums up all that Mum are about mixing what seems like an entire orchestral string section with a simple beat and clever sampling. 'Moon Pulls' is a track dominated by a piano/vocal mix that runs with all the depressive nature of Eric Carmen's 'All By Myself', but with an unobtrusive vocal accompaniment rendering it an emotive masterpiece. On the other hand tracks 'Rhuubarbidoo' and 'School Song Misfortune' just run like elevator music with a hugely diverse mix of rich, textural and melodic instrumentation, wandering from the classics to modern day with surprising ease.

With everything from the classic symphonic sounds of brass and strings to the creative dimensions of electronic sampling, synths and the violinophone, Mum certainly are experimental. The ambitious nature of which could be too much for some people t

Matthew Clutton