TLOBF Interview :: múm

Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know, a new album from Icelandic experimental pop collective múm is due out on the 24th of August. We were keen for a few hot tips on Icelandic music and curious about how the múm project was developing. Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason kindly answered a few of these queries for us.

Congratulations on the new album. From your own perspective, how would you say it’s different from your previous works?
Well, it’s lucid and straightforward…. not that our other albums haven’t been that, but maybe this one is spoken in a simpler language. Go go smear the poison ivy and Summer make good were quite complicated affairs. Even though it might not seem like it. Hmmmm… to tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer to this question and I’m just pretending. It’s calm, that much I know, but it’s still on different level and layers and dimensions.

How have things changed creatively as people have come in and out of the Múm collective?
We thrive on that, we come from a big group of friends of musicians in Reykjavík where the biggest influence on everyone is each other. This might sound incestuous, but it is a great situation. Everyone is always trying to entertain and surprise each other and this is mostly the base for what happens in our múm musician collective, we all feed of each other and it’s a creatively dynamic relationship.

Múm always seem to have interesting ideas and projects on the go, what kinds of things have you been up to between Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy and Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know?
We did some radio theater, which we enjoy very much. It’s a dying form of art and we enjoy working in it, because it fits very well to the way we do things. We also recorded some old múm songs with a mixed choir called Balsis in Riga, Latvia. We recorded at the National Radio and it was a magnificent project and now we are pretty much waiting to see what we do with the recordings. We would also like to do this live with a big choir at some point, so we are waiting for the perfect opportunity to do it.

How do you feel the new material is shaping the live experience for fans?
We’ve only played it a couple of times, but it was very heartwarming to feel the songs manifest in front of us. Chills, shakes, delirium tremens and watery eyes.

Are you excited about the way the band’s sound is developing from album to album? Do you find the changes to be an organic process?
It’s like being on a boat on a river, we do a bit of paddling now and then, but mostly we are just excited about where it’s taking us. We try not meddle to much with where the music is going, but it’s definitely going somewhere.

How do you feel about the way things have changed up until now, are any of the changes deliberate?
Like I said before, we don’t struggle too much. All the changes in this group, the changes in the music and the changes in life have all happened without much help from us. Life has a life of it’s own it seems, and there is no point in struggling.

Where do you find inspiration in other mediums? Art, literature? Are there any particular works that influenced the concepts on Sing Along..?
Literature, films, nicely arranged fruit, a grammatically wrong sentence or an old wheelbarrow or just about anything will inspire us, we are very open to most things. Hmmm…. specific things that influence Sing Along? Well, there’s a bit from Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars, there is an estonian sauna, the themes from the life of fish, Childhood by Leo Tolstoy and obviously some confused singalongs.

What experiences have inspired you with your writing recently?
Traveling and meeting new people. Having a baby was a big thing for me personally, it obviously changes everything in a way you cannot explain.

There have been some quite notable musical successes out of Iceland in the UK recently. Do you feel that these are particularly exciting times for Icelandic music?
Yes, the last ….. let’s say 15-20 years have been very exciting in Icelandic music and it just keeps getting better and new bands start up every day. And why not? There is not much else to do.

Who are your favourite Icelandic artists at the moment?
Sin Fang Bous, Hjaltalín, Retro Stefson, Ólöf Arnalds, FM Belfast, Reykjavik!, Gylfi Ægisson & Horse Marley just to name a few. Iceland is full of hot fresh shitake mushrooms.

Where in the world have you had your most memorable moments playing live?
It’s always great to go play somewhere far from your home, seeing something new and I particularly like playing in Asia. We played in Singapore last year and Taiwan before that and it was really an adventure. Playing in unusual settings is always a hoot, we have played a few castles in Italy and Switzerland and we really like those kind of experiences. Last year we played a synagogue in Washington DC and the Brooklyn Masonic temple, which were both very great places, because they were not the usual places to play.

Can you give us five Icelandic words that you associate with beautiful music?
Vatn, trall, söngl, bergmál and ómur.

Can you tell us what the most beautiful lyric you’ve ever heard is?
“Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own. Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for, you heard me sayin’ a prayer for, someone I really could care for.”

What are the things that you’re most looking forward to for the end of the year?
We will be playing quite a lot concerts, so obviously I am looking forward to that. But most of all I look forward to not knowing what happens next.

múm on MySpace