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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best surprise all year..., August 29, 2002
This new album from Mum gets more airplay on my stereo than anything else that's come out this year. These beautiful, catchy tunes have an ambient undertone, laced with crunching, scraping and crumbling beats with beautiful melodies provided by violins, trumpets, keyboards and wee little voices singing almost indistinguishable lyrics (or no lyrics at all).
This group has been compared, likened, and related to Bjork, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and Belle and Sebastian, and despite the latter mentioned group, these are completely accurate comparisons. The Belle and Sebastian reference is due to a friendship between the two groups, as well as the Mum twins appearing on the over of B+S's last full length LP ("Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant") However, Looper (electronic B+S spin off) this band is not. As far as sound and style there is no relation to B+S, and they show far more promise and talent than most of the B+S spin offs (again, Looper this band is not.)As for the other comparisons, why not just try Bjork, Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin? Mum is well worth your time and while related to, does not rip off these groups or sound too much like them... While they have a comparitive beats and ambience to these three other groups/performers they do contain their own distinct style that really makes them a worthwhile group to look into. Take the mysterious sound and vocals of Bjork, add BoC's ambience, and some Aphex Twin beats (a la "The Richard D. James Album") and you ALMOST have Mum.
What Mum has going for itself is the organic ensemble that it has put together. Rather than, like so much electronic music today, limiting themselves to keyboards and computers, this group twines in a violin here, a trumpet there, beautiful little vocals that sound like they came from a rag doll recently given the power to sing.
I should emphasize that I really don't feel they are just another cute novelty band. Where at times this album has aspects that could be named "cute" that is not the driving force that makes it a good album. The songs are beautiful and well structured, with fantastic melodies and most importantly, really gread sounds. Odd clangs and thumps and crunches that really keep your attention. This music is dreamy and magical and wonderful to either pay close attention, or let drift into the background.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A gentler sound to the creation of music..., September 19, 2002
What Mum has done with their latest release has been a near 180 on the post rock genre: instead of over-orchestrating and creating gigantic crescendos, this disc remains original and almost transcendent of the limitless genre of "post rock" due to it's minimalist and almost acoustic take on music. By taking light melodies and looping them throughout the entire piece, inserting minor variations and adding the occassional organic instrument to color it, Mum has created an almost uncatergorical volume of muusic.While this band has been compared to many IDM revolutionaries (Boards of Canada, Aphex,) and the post rock bands (GSYBE!, Sigur Ros), not much of the influence can be heard there. The only real comparison of them all is the fact that they're wholly original, and so is Mum: not writing music to incite you but music to enchant you in an almost osmotic way. The songs are enchanting in an physical way: you can see landscapes when listening to the music, almost as if it's a soundtrack to an unmade movie. The real shining aspect of this entire disc is the minimalism of it: It isn't overproduced, it isn't over orchestrated, and each song does NOT take you on a path between high and lows. It's not a collection of songs but a cd that works with both functions: active listening and background music. It's music that serves Brian Eno's idealistic dream of existing for all contexts, which makes it one of the best albums of the year. Get a copy.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
lovely night-time record, July 4, 2002
I wasn't too sure about mum, but I thought I'd give it a go, thanks to the numerous comparisons with Boards of Canada, Minotaur shock and DNTEL. I wasn't dissapointed. I could tell you all how it evokes memories of childhood and all that, but I won't, even though it's the only record in my whole collection that has actually done that. If you're looking for a late night or very early in the morning album, full of melancholic and reflective songs then this would be a perfect buy. I will say, if you're not used to singing with your electronic music this album may be a bit shocking, I certainly didn't warm to it right away, but after a couple of listens I managed to get the feeling that I was listening to St Etienne out of my mind and began to really enjoy the vocals too.and it's about a million times better than all those 'chill out' albums too.
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