múm is an electronic band from Iceland. Their latest record, History of Silence — their first full-length since 2013 — is out today on Morr Music. To celebrate, the band put together a playlist of tracks around the theme of silence. Sit with it this weekend, and be sure to check out the new record.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Carmen McRae — “The Sound of Silence”
I guess when you do a playlist on the theme of silence, you need to include “The Sound of Silence,” and I really like this version. I love how she omits the word silence in the end of the track. The silence is silent.
Pavement — “Silence Kid”
Pavement were such an important band for me as a teenager and I got to see them a couple of times in their pomp, and even got to open up for them a few years ago with another band I play with, Skakkamanage. I remember hearing Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for the first time, “Silence Kid” being the opening track, and thinking how gloriously sloppy the intro was and that I now wanted everything that I would ever do to sound this loose and careless.
Broadcast — “Sleeping Bed”
I guess this song technically hasn’t got anything to do with silence. Or maybe it does. But I can’t really do any playlist without including a Broadcast song, I just love their music too much. Spell Blanket and Distant Call that came out last year were such a huge gift and they really inspired me to keep on making music. This is a song from the former, a collection of their demos from 2006 to 2009.
Sin Fang, Sóley and Örvar Smárason — “Space”
This is from a project we did in 2017 and repeated in 2021, called Team Dreams, where we wrote, recorded and released a song every month for the whole year. The lyrics here are about suffocating in space: Sing me a song, oh no wait, there’s no sound. There is no sound in the vacuum of space, at least not in the way we think of sound. Might seem overly dramatic, but why not go all out.
Berndsen — “The Origin”
In the beginning there was complete silence. Then there was this tune by my good friend Berndsen. This is one of those songs that has been on repeat in my head since it came out and it might just be the theme song to my life, the music during the title sequence as I walk around the lonely streets of Reykjavík looking broody.
Aphex Twin — “#1”
I found a cassette tape on the ground when I was 17. Turns out it was Selected Ambient Works Volume II, and in some way it changed my life. I guess it doesn’t actually have a title, but this was the first track on that cassette. There’s this bit in the end where the song just starts breaking into total silence.
Stina Nordenstam — “And She Closed Her Eyes”
Wow, I haven’t listened to this album for probably 20 years. I’m not sure why I thought of it now; probably because of the theme. And guess what? The song ends in complete silence, except for the low hum of a cassette tape.
múm — “I Like to Shake”
Which brings me to the last track, which is also the final of our new album, History of Silence. This was recorded on to a cassette in 2005 and then stayed silent until it resurfaced a couple of years ago. The Sinfonia Nord in Akureyri play strings on it and there is something very satisfying about adding a lush sounding orchestra to a mangled old cassette recording. Gyða added her vocals on the very last evening of mixing and that was the very last thing we did. The rest is silence.
