Music Blogs

Slithering synths like dripping blueberry pie, trashcan rhythms and icy, mumbled vocal coos -- it must be Mum. Combining elastic electronic spew with spectral acoustic instruments, Icelandic experimental combo Mum follow 2004's Summer Make Good with Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy (Fat Cat), yet another offering of their uniquely disturbing comfort music.

Equal parts chamber group, vocal chorus and electronic knob twiddlers, Mum's sound is as oddly recognizable as snow falling in summer. There is a perpetual quietness to Mum's inchworm symphonettes, like the group is phoning in their individual performances from deep within a polar ice cap. Or perhaps they're sleepwalkers trained in nocturnal instrumental emissions. At the very least Mum typifies the modern musician mindset of using acoustic instruments, samplers and computers to blur the lines of standard composition. Mum songs often begin simply, only to sometimes transmogrify beyond all recognition.

"Guilty Rocks" kicks like a mock ‘70s hit by England's Broadcast, the song's beat skipping like a mad typewriter while freak synths drone a scary melody.  "A Little Bit, Sometime" is more ‘60s-centric, until a massive hip-hop beat breaks its nostalgic mood. By contrast, "They Make Frogs Explode" is both modern and ancient, wailing harmonica matched with crunching beats and a Mellotron minded vocal chorus.

"Dancing Behind My Eyelids" is the album's most purely electronic track, a lazy synth melody moving slowly as a dreamy pulse blips and burps like a sated sea otter. Slightly distorted, with gently tapped cymbals and truncated nature sounds, "Dancing" eventually ratchets up the energy level to affect a full bore Radiohead number as in "Like Spinning" Plates or "Pulk Pull Revolving Doors." Also similar to Thom Yorke's madcap computer thrashing pieces, Mum saturates their digital scribbles with deeply passionate melodies. Today's MP3 ultimately swings between jig like rhythms, child like vocals and mad beats of vengeance. Twisted? For sure.

Múm
"Dancing Behind My Eyelids" (mp3)
from "Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy"
(Fat Cat Records)

More On This Album

 

Paul Potts And The Battle For Sony Records: If you caught The New York Times' Sunday feature on Sony's attempt to "save the music industry" by hiring producer Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys) and you had the patience to wade through its rambling 12-page dissertation (which implied that Rubin mostly sits around ordering tea, checking his toenails, and avoiding an official title), you also learned of budding opera singer Paul Potts (who Rubin has signed to Sony). A rotund nerd who sells cell phones at a London chain store, Potts's incredible talent was revealed on the UK's version of American Idol, aptly named Britain's Got Talent. After the usual setup, positing Potts as a shy underachiever, the singer is introduced by Simon Cowell who asks "what do have for us tonight?" Potts replies "opera," which brings a fearful look from the judges. Undeterred, Potts launches into Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," quickly melting the audience into a state of babbling emotion. Potts's stunning, wonderfully in-pitch singing even affects the jaded judges. This is all to say that while opera in America is about as popular as dog fighting, in the right mouth, it can sooth the savage beast.

Famed Russian singer was a superstar on the level of the recently deceased Pavarotti in the late 1930s, a man of reportedly tremendous stage presence and natural acting ability. The scratchy, almost spooky vocals of Chaliapin: the Complete Recordings 1907-1936 Volume 2. Russian Recordings might not make you a true opera believer, one of those morons who stand at every performance shouting "Bravo! Bravo," but it will cause you to wonder at an era when men in capes, funny mustaches and huge bellies could attract more hot babes and serious cash than 20 Justin Timberlakes combined.

My money is on Paul Potts for world domination, the resurgence of Sony records, and the return of AMC Pacers and tube amplifiers. Well, one out of four ain't bad!

Feodor Chaliapin
"Eh, Vanka!" (mp3)
from "Chaliapin: the Complete Recordings 1907-1936 Volume 2. Russian Recordings"
(MUSIC ONLINE LTD.)

More On This Album

Feodor Chaliapin
"King Philip's Aria from the opera Don Carlos" (mp3)
from "Chaliapin: the Complete Recordings 1907-1936 Volume 2. Russian Recordings"
(MUSIC ONLINE LTD.)

More On This Album