Múm concert review
By Chris Chew
Rating: 7/10
Anyone sitting through the first 15 minutes of Múm’s recent show in Singapore would have been forgiven if he or she yawned twice, or changed postures frequently. The seven-piece band performing onstage were unloading melodies of immense sorrow, faces etched with anguish and bodies locked in coffin-esque stances. Opener ‘Winter (What We Never Were After All)’ had swamped the Esplanade concert hall in an icy tide of gloom, and follow-up ‘Moon Pulls’ and the surrounding cobalt blue lights hadn’t done much mood-perking either. Was this to be the dominant theme of the evening, i.e., an outpouring of fog-drawn moroseness? Would that adorable Icelandic-inflected brand of English that the band spoke be the closest to kiddie glee that anyone would get?
Such apprehension so early on was probably taking things a stretch too far, but one could make a case for its place. Múm’s stopover at Singapore’s Mosaic Music Festival was part of their current world tour, which was the first without founding member Kristin Valtysdottir (who also didn’t appear on Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy, the band’s 2007 album). When Kristin’s twin sister Gyða left in 2006, the fear was that version 2.0 of one of Iceland’s premiere ambient electronica acts would see the whimsical wiles of youth traded for brooding maturity. Which, on the basis of the first 15 meandering minutes, surely meant coma-inducing boredom.
Fortunately, such fears were never realised; the Múm of great repute would not have permitted that to happen. There’s a reason why Iceland was recently declared the fourth happiest country in the world. Indeed, despite the aforementioned departures, the chirpy core of Múm remained intact in founders Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason and Gunnar Örn Tynes, while the replacement girls of Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sigurlaug Gisladottir, aka Mr Silla, were no slouches in the merrymaking department either.
As such, it soon became clear that the band’s charm was not going to be suppressed. ‘Marmalade Fires’ heralded a noticeable loosening of nerves, and the beginning of playtime. Like kindergarten teachers (the kind we wish we had), Múm introduced their songs by identifying their topics, be it the moon (‘Moon Pulls’), big horses (‘Hestur’) or “blessing things that grow,” said Hildur before the start of ‘Blessed Brambles’. She then pointed to the rather tall Örvar and added, “Like him! He never stops growing!”
As the multi-instrumentalist band frolicked from grand piano to cello to piccolo and everything in between, special mention has to be made of the one constant, i.e., drummer Samuli Kosminen. Many of the rhythms that undergird Múm’s songs consist of a sputter of 16- and 32-beat fills that, convention dictates, would be cued via a laptop. But Samuli rattled them off effortlessly via a spread of trigger pads attached to his drum kit. With such razor-sharp dexterity, he even found time to stand up, stretch and drape a towel over one of his cymbals. Bloody show off—and he had every right to.
Such musicianship was evident in all seven personnel, from Hildur and Sigurlaug’s operatic vocal wails to the tasty brasslines of Eiríkur Orri Olafsson. Before set closer ‘They Made Frogs Smoke ‘Til They Exploded’, Gunnar distributed kazoos into the crowd, inviting the lucky few who got one to blow along. It was the definitive sign of chilly walls tumbling down, and of a starry-eyed crowd lapping up the cute overload. One had to wonder why the evening didn’t just begin like this. But perhaps it does take a while to find that inner child. And as long as the kid unveiled is of this ilk, there really can’t be any complaints.
MUM LIVE AT MOSAIC MUSIC FESTIVAL
Date
13 March 2008
Venue
Esplanade Theatre on the Bay, Singapore
Set List
- Winter (What We Never Were After All)
- Moon Pulls
- Hestur (I was Her Horse)
- Oh, How the Boat Drifts
- Marmalade Fires
- Guilty Rocks
- Blessed Brambles
- I’m 9 Today
- A Little Bit, Sometimes
- Koztryn
- These Berries Are Eyes
- Dancing Behind My Eyelids
- They Made Frogs Smoke ‘Til They Exploded
Encore
- The Ghosts You Draw On My Back
- Smell Memory