múm
Issue #26
Yesterday Was Dramatic — Today Is Okay (Morr Music)
By Anna Breshears
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 12:54pm
Icelandic natives múm hail from a country that conjures images of vast, glacial lands carved by arctic winds. On this re-release of their debut, Yesterday Was Dramatic — Today Is OK, the band pays tribute to their wintry homeland with music that is equally expansive: stark beats counterbalanced by cozier tones that result in dreamy, electronic soundscapes.
Like the similarly minded Boards of Canada and, to a lesser extent, Tortoise, múm creates music best heard while you’re doing something else. The fact that Yesterday is an ideal accompaniment to work assignments, magazine perusal, web searches, or make out sessions is not an insult. After all, these activities need a soundtrack.
Though its primary function is to provide atmosphere, there is a respectable amount of thematic variation from track to track. Opener “I’m 9 Today” commingles standard-issue laptop blips with warm and sweet keyboards, while the sparse minimalism of “Smell Memory” gives way to periods of spacey, glimmering noise. The undulating and melodic “Asleep on a Train,” magical “The” Ballad of a Broken Birdie Records,” and dark cinematic sprawl of “Sunday Night Just Keeps on Rolling” all provide pleasantly peaceful backdrops of different stripes.
The aural pleasures of Yesterday prove that an album doesn’t have to absorb your entire focus to be an enjoyable experience.
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