For the uninitiated: Múm makes music that would emanate from Willy Wonka’s jewelry box. I can close my eyes and actually see their music. It looks like a found object sculpture, with various instruments, kitchen utensils, and all manner of gadgets (analog and digital) piled high and held together with catgut and twine. A marvelous contraption set in motion and song by dropping a large marble into a bright chrome cylinder soldered to the top. As the marble travels down the sculpture, in, out, and back in again, it triggers notes, chords, voices, tiny starched flags adorned with glitter and stars and fastened to thin gold poles, flickering in and out of view—an explosion of sparkles signaling each change of timbre and tone, beat and bell, melody and mood. In a word, or two, utterly fanciful. Múm is the music of the butterflies that tickle your heart when you’re in love. If this is the first Múm song you’ve ever heard, please don’t let it be your last…
Welcome
I love it when I walk into a record store, hear something playing and am curious enough to buy it. It doesn’t happen often enough. And when I find myself bopping to something I’ve never heard despite an apocalyptically foul mood–well, shoo-oot, bring it on! Well, Welcome was that band for me this past weekend. These folks are a girl and boy band, of Seattle, and to me they sound like the English or maybe a little Twee-ish or, wait, is that some pixie-ish guitar? I have no idea. But it’s a happy mish-mash of influences that I was glad to add to the soundtrack of my downer day. The bummer? Not available stateside until March, so I didn’t get to buy it. But the rest of the world is currently enjoying it now. Can you say import? Oh and be sure to check “This Minute†on the myspace page when you are done with what is here.
Amandine
I’ve dabbled in the writing of fiction. Dabbled being the operative word. My enthusiasm for music has prevented me from moving beyond flirtation with the medium. 3hive’s a perfect example. Here I sit giving more time to the melodies of others than to words of my own. Amandine’s dusty waltz, “Fathers And Sons,” shares the title of a story I’ve been working on for almost two years now. Reminds me I need to put down the iPod and pick up a pen…