MÚM
Dusk Log
CD10FAT03
10” / CDS
Fat-Cat Records 2004

Icelandic trio Múm follow the release of their superb Summer Make Good album with a new EP, Dusk Log, featuring Will The Summer Make Good For All Of Our Sins, taken from the album, with three previously unreleased tracks. This EP opens with the live favourite Kustrin. An unusually upbeat piece, this lush instrumental nevertheless bears the band’s characteristic marks of the trio’s soft-spoken pop and beautiful arrangements, with waves of sumptuous instruments crashing onto a complex beat structure. This Nothing Is The Faraway, which follows, is a more traditional song for Múm. Here again, as on Summer Make Good, the band plays with minimal melodies and arrangements, distilling their essence with parsimony, as if they were desperate to save as much energy as possible, resulting in the track feeling extremely dreamy and vaporous. The melancholic Will The Summer Make Good For Our Sins seems to bring the listener back down to earth with a bang as the rudeness of winter and sparse sub-polar night falls on this languorous lullaby. Kristin Anna Valtýsdóttir’s childlike voice appears almost unreal here, yet, there is something intensely warm in her voice that sends the human emotional scope into turmoil, a feeling which is only emphasised on Boots Of Fog, which closes the EP. Only the touches of accordion manage to distract the listener from the fascinating voice. As the song comes to a close, a mandolin slowly takes over, building a discreet line around a series of found sounds.
Dusk Log is a perfect companion to Múm’s recent album, and demonstrate in a much more concise format how the band manages to build fragile little stories and articulate them together.

METAPHROG / HEY / MÚM
Louis – Dreams Never Die
CDFATPHROG01
Book + 7” / Book + CDS
Metaphrog/Fat-Cat Records 2004 

There is something strangely Gainsbourgian in Hey’s Dreams Never Die To FC, which accompanies Louis – Dreams Never Die, a beautiful joint release from Franco-Scottish duo Metaphrog, who have been publishing graphic novels and comics since 1996, and Brighton-based Fat-Cat Records. This is perhaps due to the song being sung in French, or more probably because of the syncopated way it is sung. The project started when the Metaphrog team came across a rare vinyl from Austrian duo Hey, and sent some comics in return. Múm got to hear of the project and produced their own version of the song, sticking close to the original, while bringing some extra fragility to the project.
The animation merges both tracks into a sweet little movie, which is likely to appeal to the child in most adults, and the music, despite the child-like atmosphere, also reveals a great maturity and control over melody and arrangements, on both versions of the song. A delicate combination of acoustic and electronic elements with founds sounds and fragile vocals characterises the original version, while Múm inject a touch of their familiar sound to highlight the melody and reinforce the mood developed over Hey’s version. Louis – Dreams Never Die is certainly no common release, and is likely to only satisfy a few, but for those who can still see the world as they used to when they were children, this is a release not to miss.

NEW ORDER
Blue Monday/Confusion Acid House Mix By 808 State (1988)
CAT806EP
12”
Rephlex 2004

These two previously unreleased versions of the New Order classics Blue Monday and Confusion are said to have been recorded for 808 State’s live performance in Manchester as the acid house scene was still burgeoning. Released as a teaser for the long-awaited Prebuild album of lost 808 State early recording, this superb EP is worth its weight in gold. Yet, these two tracks are actually rather excellent in their own right, with Confusion proving a slightly more subdued affair than the full-on Blue Monday. More importantly, these tracks were recorded pretty much at the same time as those featured on Prebuild, and show 808 State as a tight and superbly functioning unit. Already described as an absolute classic, this EP represents an important document in the history of British dance music, and a bridge between two important generations of electronic music.