Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.08.2009, Page 16

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2009
Optimistic, Hopeless, Content
múm on music, culture, values, protests and the dying afterparty
Music | Interview
Relentlessly experimental electro/pop/
whatever outfit múm are arguably one
of Iceland’s most successful musical
exports to date. Since forming in 1997,
the band has released five successful,
highly inf luential LPs and toured the
world extensively, consistently adding
to their cache of friends and fans each
time around.
Throughout the band’s life,
its members have also diligently
represented certain values that –
while certainly not prevalent in
Icelandic society as a whole – are
held in high regard within some of
their generation’s artistic and creative
niches. Although never loudly political,
they have, along with their peers in
bands such as Sigur Rós (and, in fact,
most other notable Icelandic outfits),
continually rejected the market values,
greed and unfettered capitalism that
many believe lead Iceland to the brink
of whatever it’s on the brink of right
now.
Labelling them as great thinkers or
spokespeople of their generation would
be unfair, but to a casual observer
of Icelandic music it seems evident
that they are rather inf luential in
their MOs and values, and that they
partly embody the hearty and hard-
working DIY spirit that the local scene
celebrates and is in turn celebrated for.
In any case, they will release their
sixth long player this month, the
decidedly brilliant Sing Along To
Songs You Don’t Know. This provided
Grapevine with a good opportunity
to catch up with founding members
Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar
Þóreyjarson Smárason, learn about
them and their new album as well as
their thoughts on some of what’s been
going on in Iceland lately. So we met
for coffee and conversation.
A FRIGHTENING HEAP OF EVENTS
-Who are you? What are you doing here
today? Describe the chain of events that
lead to our meeting here over coffee.
Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason: A very
long chain. Gunni [Gunnar Tynes] and
I met at my 19th birthday, where he
showed up uninvited. That was where
the chain started.
Gunnar Tynes: A frightening heap of
events has lead to this very moment.
-For the uninitiated, what have you
been doing since the two of you formed
múm twelve years ago?
ÖÞS: We’ve mainly been making
music. We’ve been hyperactive at that.
We started playing together in a band
called Andhéri and there discovered
that the two of us had a lot of drive
to make a lot of music, to work hard
and create together. We eventually got
pulled into working together, as the
rest of Andhéri kind of dropped out.
GT: We were kind of like the extreme
trainspotters or aircraft model
enthusiasts, in that we wanted to
devote all our energy to making music.
To us, it was more than a hobby. Lots
of people around us wanted music as a
diversion, when they weren’t tending
to their real lives. There really wasn’t
anything else we wanted to do. We
were too obsessive.
-Andhéri was a great indie rock band,
although extremely different from
your initial output as múm. Did you
discover that you shared aesthetics or
an interest in specific genres before
forming múm?
ÖÞS: I think we sensed immediately
that we were both open to all of the
possibilities present in music. We
realized instantly that we weren’t
interested in confining ourselves to
making indie rock. We were fine with
sounding like Slint, but there are just
so many possibilities out there; there’s
no reason to confine yourself to a
specific sound.
GT: I think what united us more than
anything was our drive rather than
any shared aesthetic or taste. The
most important thing about creative
cooperation is bringing different
ideas to the table, mediating and then
uniting them.
PLAYING EXPLORER...
-The process of creating electronic
music has changed a lot since your first
releases, when the process was a lot
more complicated. Was making those
first múm albums a learning process
for you?
ÖÞS: Definitely. The main difference
is that the technology has changed
and advanced; it’s harder for us to play
explorer now as everything is much
more accessible. Starting múm, or
at least making those first albums,
would probably be harder for us in this
environment. Or at least the music
would have sounded a lot different.
GT: Still, that’s something we continue
doing. We keep searching for new
grounds to explore and map out, this
is partly why we moved away from
making purely electronic music, we
were feeling too confident on that
terrain.
ÖÞS: And then we’ve perhaps taken
part in shaping the landscape of today,
the methods that are now prevalent.
We’ve been working in the field for
over a decade and helped develop some
things. Like Ableton Live, which is
now the main program for making
electronic music. We made friends
with the creators of that program
before it came out. That was in Berlin
ten years ago, when they were a bunch
of geeks like us. We’ve been in touch
with them since and had a say in
the development of the software. It’s
odd to think that Live is nearing its
ten-year anniversary. That software
has definitely had a big impact on the
way music is made and performed on
stage.
-As a music enthusiast, I get the
impression that múm has contributed
somewhat to the sounds and methods
of modern music, at least in certain
corners of it. I know it’s an odd
question, but do you feel... influential?
Do you hear yourselves in the works of
others?
ÖÞS: I oftentimes feel like we’ve
inf luenced some good things with
some people...
GT: I think you can’t necessarily
hear it, if it’s even the case. I mean,
most of the music that inf luences
me doesn’t necessarily affect the way
my songs will sound... I think that if
we’ve had any inf luence, it’s mostly in
our open attitudes and willingness to
experiment.
ÖÞS: At least people now seem more
open to using different instruments
and mixing up styles. Being open and
honest.
GT: If we have indeed had any
inf luence, we hope that’s it.
FISCAL CONCERNS
-You’ve been making a living off being
musicians for a while now; this is
uncommon for Icelandic artists...
ÖÞS: Yes, this has been our day job
for around eight years. We... we just
basically do all we can – a lot of hard
work – to make some sort of living off
this.
GT: We’ve had to work hard, making a
living off this is only possible by being
diligent. You can do anything you
love for a job so long as you’re diligent
enough, if you put enough work into it.
ÖÞS: It’s sort of a risk, though. You
need to accept the fact that you have no
job security at all, you never know if
you can make ends meet two months
from now. And be content. Like a lot of
people are.
-Speaking of fiscal matters, in
the immediate aftermath of our
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, a lot of
people went after artists and musicians
for not being critical enough in
the years leading up to it, the so-
called “Goodyears.” That they were
sorta off in their own worlds, not
paying attention to corruption and
social affairs. I felt the criticism was
unwarranted... for instance, you have
always seemed to publicly champion
different values than those that lead
the people of Iceland astray, swimming
against the mainstream that was
dancing around golden calves...
ÖÞS: Well, I think it’s safe to say that
we were mocked and viewed with
a suspicion by mainstream society
during the boom years, for not
partaking in the feast and representing
different values than those in vogue at
the time. And then when everything
went to hell, us and other artists were
singled out again. That was kind of
unsettling, there are probably few
social groups that participated less in
all the boom bullshit than artists and
musicians.
And there are in fact few social
groups better equipped to deal with
the aftermath of the economic collapse
than musicians; there’s never any
job security, there’s no grants... it’s a
profession that has come to expect, and
live on, nothing.

-The criticism seemed unfair.
Musicians like yourselves and Sigur
Rós, for instance, always seemed to
endorse modest and egalitarian views,
speaking up against materialism and
greed, even if you weren’t beating the
message into folk’s heads...
ÖÞS: People tend to forget that
politics are just as much about
presenting different views and ideas
for the future, different possibilities
and portraying different worlds.
Underlining the fact that the world
we currently inhabit isn’t the only
one to be had. I feel this is something
we’ve tried to do. We’ve always had our
opinions and given them out freely,
without necessarily spelling them out
in our lyrics or album covers.
“THE HANGOVER HAS BEGUN...”
-Still, as a band you’ve been fairly
politically active, playing benefits and
supporting various causes. And you
were active in the January protests....
ÖÞS: Those rewarding times. You felt
as if there were these amazing things
happening, everyone had a tension
in their heart. Since then people
have come down, like they will from
any sort of high. The hangover has
begun...
-Are you disappointed with the results?
ÖÞS: Well, who isn’t? I can’t imagine
that anyone that protested in January
is happy with the way things have
developed since.
-Explain how. When you read about
Iceland’s situation in the international
press, the story usually goes that in
the aftermath of the collapse, the
people of Iceland successfully drove
the government away from power by
protesting and have since then been
rebuilding society.
ÖÞS: Most of the protestors were
hoping for something much more.
There was a great demand for a new
republic, the foundations of a new
system, a massive restructuring
and clean-up. A new way of
running things. Those ideas have
all been swept under the rug, even
Borgarahreyfingin [The Citizen’s
Movement – a grassroots political party
that sprang from protests. They ran
in last April’s parliamentary elections
and won four seats] is on its way to
becoming part of the same old rotten
system. Right now it seems everyone is
thinking of ways to get back to what we
were doing pre-collapse.
GT: The situation now could be likened
to a messy afterparty, the house has