END RANT
JULY 16, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Issue 43 - Feature Interview: Analog + Digital in Iceland
The Icelandic group Múm started off as a four piece mixing inventive but orthodox electronica with acoustic instruments. Now they're a three-piece, and their music — neither wholly electronic nor acoustic — has become startlingly unique. For live shows they augment PowerBook grooves with guitars, banjo, accordion, melodicas, bells, xylophone, trumpet, strings, and musical saw. Their recently-released third album, Summer Make Good, adds harp, Stroh violin, and North Atlantic gales to this mix, and it should be required listening for anyone looking to create and capture hitherto unheard sounds in any genre of music. I spoke to Örvar Smárason from the group about the making of the album, which was conceived in Berlin, recorded in an old lighthouse keeper's house by Orri Jonson of Slowblow and mixed in Sundlaugin, Sigur Rós' swimming pool studio.