Customer Reviews

Summer Make Good

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was disappointed with this album on first listen. I was knocked over by the depth and emotional intensity of "Finally we are no one" and after seeing the band perform several of the new tracks live prior to the release of "summer" I was expecting another 5 star release. While the band (minus one) have not quite reached the pinnacle of their previous effort, this record is subtly brilliant in it's own right. It creates a darker sense of romanticism and is not marked as much by the idyllic naivete that made the first and second records so charming. Gone are most of the pretty melodies, and the carefully built to crescendo arrangements. What remains is fragmented, misty, and somehow mildly disturbing. Given that it was recorded at a lighthouse, this imagery starts to make sense. The songs are very manipulated (and only vaguely resembling their "live" versions) - altered significantly from their acoustic form, and always peppered by a kind of digital "fog"; shifting, creaking, bending sounds that give the record it's atmosphere. I managed to pop it in on a particularly foggy northern california day and this is the perfect way to hear it.

Mum come from Iceland where there are more people than trees and apparently more talented musicians than people.

The running theory goes that because so much of the year is perpetual twighlight due to the nation's proximity to the arctic circle, that there is a consistent vibe in all the music coming out of the place. This vibe is apparently heavily influenced by a sort of hoovering between night and day and by extension, between dreaming and waking.

Anyway, Mum embodies this better than any other Icelandic group to me. They are pure magic. They'll sample the sound of ice melting and make a song out of it... and it's good.

Then they loop their voices in a way that makes you sure that you've heard them singing in a dream sometime when you were a child or perhaps in a film strip they made you watch in grammar school that tickled you into daydream that melted fluidly into naptime.

Finally We Are No One (2nd albumn) is more melodic and has more elaborate instrumentation than Summer Make Good (3rd albumn) or Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today is Okay (1st) which are both more rythmic.

I prefer their gently haunting melodies to their mystically vibrating rythm pieces... but that's just me.

If Julie Cruise singing Angelo Badalamenti's songs had a baby with Music for Films era Brian Eno and that baby was allowed to play with Bjork's Drum Machine... you'd start to approximate Mum.

With its slow building ambience, old world influences pillaging a list of bizarre and ancient instruments too numerous to mention, and frail vocals, Múm has produced a truly zen CD. As epic as it is fragile, there's a touch of spaghetti-western-final-gun-battle score, over the top but in their own nice way quality to almost every track but cut with an Amelie softness. Most people's enjoyment of this band will no doubt depend on what effect the lead vocals have subjectively. To some, she may sound like a broken-winged angel pleading for God's help in line with a same Bjork dealing with Beth Gibbons' emotions, but to others she may just be a little too Elmo or Robin, Kermit's nephew, to break through to a new plane of depression and wonder. Or she could be both and that's why you like it. It's a musical yin and yang.

Amid the hustle and bustle, Mum releases their third effort, Summer Made Good. As with the title, the album spots a slightly more uplifting mood compared to the sombre and cinematic Finally we Are No one.


There's less ambient sounds and electronica here. Instead you'll get more vocals on this album which mostly work to form a seamless connection but fails on one or two ocassions. Those used to their first two albums might be a little disappointed especially if you really love Finally.


No doubt there's still some nice lush instrumental tracks here to fall in love with.

Why are Icelandic musicans so creative? With the exception of Beastie Boy-ripoffs Quarashi, musicians in Iceland just seem to do things right. From Sigur Ros to Bjork to Mum, they just know how to invoke emotions hidden deep inside like no other. Maybe it's because of the cold, sterile nature of their surroundings they feel a need to explore and communicate through the warmth of emotive, intelligent music. Or maybe there's just something in the water over there. Either way, Mum's new album Summer Make Good is a gorgeous voyage through the oceans of serenity.

Summer Make Good opens with "Hu Viss - A Ship" and "Weeping Rock, Rock," a song reminscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven and sets the pace for rest of the album-ominous and brooding yet offering a small ray of light. This anchor of hope is provided by Kristin Anna Valtysdottir's tender vocals moving in and out like small waves of tranquility while treacherous floods capsize you to the ocean floor.

It's no coincidence these songs sound more like melancholic water lullabies than the jubilant ditties found on Finally We Are One and Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Was Ok. The songs were written in a remote lighthouse in Galtarviti and then recorded in an empty weather station and a lightkeeper's cabin below another lighthouse. Sounds from these eerie locations are dispersed throughout Summer Make Good creating a level of natural atmospheric bliss amongst spectral electronics.

While Valtysdottir does sing partially in English and Icelandic, like fellow Icelandic musicians, Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros and Bjork, there is no need to know what is actually being said. The vocals are used more as an instrument than as a poetic device. Emotions are evoked without any sad tales of broken hearts and slashed wrists-just soft whispers spoken in the most innocent, delicate soprano voice.

Imagine a snowy, ice-crusted clearing, with the clear cold moon shining down on it. Now imagine a bunch of ghosts and otherworldly sprites creeping into the clearing, and singing like ominous children.

That about describes the wintry sound of "Summer Make Good," which tries out a very different sound for Icelandic band Múm -- more ambient, more vocal, and more melodic than electronic. Basically, the band sounds like the slightly creepy little sister of Sigur Ros... not that that's a bad thing at all.

It opens with "Hú Hviss - A Ship," which is pretty skippable -- it's basically a spooky horn and various creakings. But fortunately that moves into "Nightly Cares," a lullabyesque ballad with soft, ghostly vocals, and the icy, meandering electronica of "The Ghosts You Draw on My Back."

From there on, Mum noodle through expanses of ice, night, spaciness and static, with gently wandering melodies topped with electronic glitches. They dabble in more typical pop music in the crystalline "Island of Children's Child", but always slip back into music that sounds airy and creepy, with a sweep of electronica keeping the ambience grounded.

This is not an album to be comfortable to. Listen to it while you sleep, and you'll have dreams about being lost in the snow. Instead it's a long experiment, with vocals in all of their songs, and a more ambient, dreamlike sound that is usually associated with Sigur Ros.

It's very different from their previous work, but only occasionally does it fail to be good. The instrumentation is simply stunning and very creepy -- there's mellotron, synth, and soft drums and guitars gently wafting in and out. I never knew a banjo could sound so incredibly weird. The only weakness of this album is that in some of the shorter songs ("Away," for example) Mum sounds like they were just noodling for the sake of noodling.

This album is also notable for having vocals in pretty much all of the songs, save a few. I'm not sure who is singing, but it sounds like a ghostly little girl, or perhaps a wistful sprite. "... plays a sad old song/I hope tonight/You will touch my hair/and draw ghosts on my back," she croons over stretches of winding synth.

"Summer Make Good" is meant to be an experiment, and if its goal is to be wintry, sleepy and compelling, then it was a success. Just don't look for Mum's "usual" sound in this.

A project by the few beautiful people from Iceland. It seems like every artist that comes out of Iceland never really leaves it, wherever they are located in the world. Like this album for example, it was recorded in all sorts of places with the help of people from all kinds of nationalities, but I cannot help and imagine myself situated in a warm house that is in a very small, isolated, distant land.
The music is a lot more analog and acoustic then I would have imagined, so it really feels infused with human touch, to the point of having a sexy sway. It feels like a gathering of strange nature creatures who know how to play music, very surreal.
On top of everything they made it seem like it was a gathering of very good friends, and it feels like the musicians are supporting each other with great drive.
The whole album kind of takes up, in its own unique way, one of the 'major' recording concepts in todays music: a layered wall of sound. The idea is basically make it sound more menacing and powerful and be able to stuff the entire stereo wall with lots and lots of NOISE. Only this Mum album doesn't sound very compressed, so even though there is so much happening, and so many instruments used, it >feels< very quiet, great contrasts.
Super. Waiting for new Boards of Canada album...

In Mùm's latest full length "Summer Make Good," we see the loveable children of Iceland branch out from their glitchy, static drenched electronic days, and acquire a purer, raw sound, relying on numerous acoustic instruments moreso than laptops. While not having the instant gratification of their previous recordings, the album still stands out from the crowd of similar acts such as Domotic. I admit that "Finally We Are No One" remains my favorite, as I guess it does for everyone else. My theory of this record not quite making the impact of its predecessor is the departure of 1/2 of the vocalists (that actually makes one) and the fact that too many hands touched it. While having additional musician appearances on a record can inhance the songs' strength, it sometimes can dillute signature elements and result in a sound of friends making songs and not the sound of a flawless record (saddle creek anyone?).
It's a great album though, with a powerful introduction in the first tracks that slowly blends to an atmospheric sailing toward a lullaby-esque completion. Recommended, but please be sure to check out the earlier material.

(sorry for bad english)
I discovered Mum like 4 weeks ago, and fell in love with their enchanting melodies and sounds. I couldnt stop listening Green grass of tunnel for days! And I always listened their other tracks while making art designs. Mostly my favourite tracks where the ones with the cute little girl voice, so when i heard this album had a lot of singing, I was so exited.

Yes, this album is still Mum, but not as creative as their other albums. Yes, most tracks here have that weird baby singing (as I hoped for), but.. theres no enchanting melody. Most of their tracks are pretty much the same, they only differ in sounds, which are not as catchy as their other albums. There are 1-2 good tracks here tho.

I hope they do much better for their next album. I hardly find good music that inspire me in these days now. I still love you Mum ;)

From front to back this album glides. No big bang, no top charts chorus. Filled with sounds (rather than instruments) making music and singing more like the humming you do inside your head.

I see though, why many people liked their older two albums: They're much more formulated, with actual direction - a rise and fall with different songs having different feelings and textures. I however love that the first few times i heard Summer Make Good, i didn't know when a song would end and the next would begin - i found it comforting and relieving.

i now listen to it just about everynight as i go to sleep (and i've had it for over 2 years (and counting)). This CD is in my top ten (and i listen to everything from Tool and deftones - Ani DiFranco, Elliott Smith, and Cat Power - bjork and Greg Brown - Tom Waits and Jolie Holland)

If you love music for what it is and could be and is not - this is a great album for you. But if you need formula and boundaries and process and direction this may not be for you (no negative conotation intended - it may just not be for you).