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08.I.04 New album from Mum!

Mum’s next album will be out on Fat Cat in the beginning of April and is called “Summer Make Good”. The album is ready, was mixed in December and afterwards the members went on a christmas holiday.

The album was recorded at the Gardskagi lighthouse. It seems the band is in love with lighthouses as last album - last years “Finally we are no one” - was recorded at another lighthouse, the remote Galtar lighthouse.

“We just needed a location close to Reykjavik,” says Mum’s Gunnar Tynes, and says this lighthouse-fixation is just a coincidence. “Then we got this great house in Gardi town and even got to be there free at charge thanks to the town consil. The new album was recorded with Orri Jonsson, which is in Slowblow with filmmaker Dagur Kari Petursson (Noi Albinoi). “With Orri we recorded live on tape and mixed the results with what we already had on our computer,” says Gunnar.

Orvar Thoreyjarson Smarason and Kristin Valtysdottir are the members of Mum with Gunnar, but on the new album Eirikur Olafsson, Olof Arnalds and Samuli Kosminen appear as well. They have played concerts with the trio lately.

Gunnar has few answers when pressed for description of the new album, but says the music is perhaps quiter and more minimal than before. “We wanted to get dirty sound out of the tape machine and keep the music alive”.

Orri Jonsson and Mum have worked together before. “Orvar played with Slowblow in LA in 2000 and several Mum members played with us in 2002,” says Orri.

“We had all our equipment at this house besides the Gardskaga lighthouse,” Orri explains. “This was a tight session for seven weeks and almost no day off. The band had already done a lot on Pro-Tools and I brought in a 16-track tape machine. The live sessions were then mixed with the computer stuff. Our biggest problem was the strong south-western wind. My tape machine got cold and slowed down. Then all harmony between the computer and the tape went out the window. When all was ready we mixed the album at Sigur Ros’ swimming pool”.

Mum’s Kristin will guest on Slowblow’s new album which will be released by Smekkleysa in the summer. Smekkleysa will first re-release both of Slowblow’s albums, 1994’s “Quicksilver Tuna” and 1996’s “Fousque” which stars Emiliana Torrini.

Orri doesnt want to say much about the new Mum album, but he says that Mum’s world of sound has changed some.

The first single from the album - “Nightly cares” - is out in March. Mum will go on a 5 month tour all over the world starting in April and later in the year there will be a new single with a song from the new album plus three or four new songs.

(Article based on Arnar E. Thoroddsen’s article from www.mbl.is)