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Music CD - Múm: Summer Make Good
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Music CD: Summer Make Good
Artist: Múm
List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $9.70
Your Save: $ 5.28 ( 35% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Fat Cat
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Hú Hviss - A Ship
2. Weeping Rock, Rock
3. Nightly Cares
4. Ghosts You Draw on My Back
5. Stir
6. Sing Me Out the Window
7. Islands of the Childrens Children
8. Away
9. Oh, How the Boat Drifts
10. Small Deaths Are the Saddest
11. Will the Summer Make Good for All of Our Sins?
12. Abandoned Ship Bells
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0805551092623
Label: Fat Cat
Manufacturer: Fat Cat
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Fat Cat
Release Date: 2004-05-04
Studio: Fat Cat
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Its pretty good, but Finally we are no one is way better
Comment: SOoooo, I got both Summer make good, and Finally we are no one, At the same time.. and I would have to say that Summer Make Good is definitely the darker sounding album of the two. but they're both good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Summer" is good
Comment: Imagine a snowy, ice-crusted clearing, with the clear cold moon shining down on it. Now imagine a bunch of ghosts and otherworldly sprites creeping into the clearing, and singing like ominous children.
That about describes the wintry sound of "Summer Make Good," which tries out a very different sound for Icelandic band Múm -- more ambient, more vocal, and more melodic than electronic. Basically, the band sounds like the slightly creepy little sister of Sigur Ros... not that that's a bad thing at all.
It opens with "Hú Hviss - A Ship," which is pretty skippable -- it's basically a spooky horn and various creakings. But fortunately that moves into "Nightly Cares," a lullabyesque ballad with soft, ghostly vocals, and the icy, meandering electronica of "The Ghosts You Draw on My Back."
From there on, Mum noodle through expanses of ice, night, spaciness and static, with gently wandering melodies topped with electronic glitches. They dabble in more typical pop music in the crystalline "Island of Children's Child", but always slip back into music that sounds airy and creepy, with a sweep of electronica keeping the ambience grounded.
This is not an album to be comfortable to. Listen to it while you sleep, and you'll have dreams about being lost in the snow. Instead it's a long experiment, with vocals in all of their songs, and a more ambient, dreamlike sound that is usually associated with Sigur Ros.
It's very different from their previous work, but only occasionally does it fail to be good. The instrumentation is simply stunning and very creepy -- there's mellotron, synth, and soft drums and guitars gently wafting in and out. I never knew a banjo could sound so incredibly weird. The only weakness of this album is that in some of the shorter songs ("Away," for example) Mum sounds like they were just noodling for the sake of noodling.
This album is also notable for having vocals in pretty much all of the songs, save a few. I'm not sure who is singing, but it sounds like a ghostly little girl, or perhaps a wistful sprite. "... plays a sad old song/I hope tonight/You will touch my hair/and draw ghosts on my back," she croons over stretches of winding synth.
"Summer Make Good" is meant to be an experiment, and if its goal is to be wintry, sleepy and compelling, then it was a success. Just don't look for Mum's "usual" sound in this.
Customer Rating:
Summary: less creative
Comment: (sorry for bad english)
I discovered Mum like 4 weeks ago, and fell in love with their enchanting melodies and sounds. I couldnt stop listening Green grass of tunnel for days! And I always listened their other tracks while making art designs. Mostly my favourite tracks where the ones with the cute little girl voice, so when i heard this album had a lot of singing, I was so exited.
Yes, this album is still Mum, but not as creative as their other albums. Yes, most tracks here have that weird baby singing (as I hoped for), but.. theres no enchanting melody. Most of their tracks are pretty much the same, they only differ in sounds, which are not as catchy as their other albums. There are 1-2 good tracks here tho.
I hope they do much better for their next album. I hardly find good music that inspire me in these days now. I still love you Mum ;)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I expected, but Limited Edition is worth it.
Comment: "Finally We Are No One" was excellent, if not near classic. "Yesterday Was Ok..." was thought-provoking and emotional, nostalgic music. "Please Smile My Nosebleed" was also largely remeniscent of old distorted memories of days gone by, with the golden 'On The Old Mountain Radio'. However, these feelings are quite lacking on "Summer Make Good". Instead, they are replaced by something... inexplainable.
Upon my purchase of "Summer Make Good", I was very much excited; I even bought the Limited Edition hardcover book version.
Let me tell you this: The book is just gorgeous. I was blown away by the old authentic textured cover. I drooled over the old, inksplattered pages, lapped up the words, stared dreamilly into the photographs and pictures and drawings, I took in that new-old-book smell, And because of this, I fell into that quiet, paraconscious mood that you have to be in to fully appreciate an electronica / electro-alternative / neo-classical album.
But even with all my enthusiasm and preparation, something just does not sit right with this disc. Although she has a lovely voice, the '-dottir' singer overdoes it a bit. I think this album is to Mum what "Hotel" is to Moby; boldly finding a renewed urge to sing on almost every track. In some part this has to be applauded, I guess, but what both these artists fail to understand is that they initially built their loyal worldwide fanbase primarilly because there is no contextual restriction or language barrier imposed on predominently INSTRUMENTAL music. Sing in a song, and you immediately restrict it's meaning and interpretation. You also narrow your audience to mainly those people who can understand the language you are singing in (not always, but often). This is not to say that I don't enjoy lyrics in music. 90% of my CDs are lyrical. But where artists so often got it right doing things all instrumentally, it becomes very hard for the venture into vocal-driven tracks not to turn out wrong. Exceptions for Mum are the gorgeous "Green Grass Of Tunnel" from "Finally..." in which the singing had a simple and easilly memorised melody of it's own.
I hope that Mum find their meaning mainly in the music again on their next album, and not so much on the vocals, which, as harsh as it sounds, were quite second-rate here. Apart from that, the album is indeed dripping with athmosphere: darker than their past two, and more abstract. However, the record evokes curiosity rather than melancholy, and unease rather than comfort. Again, this doesn't make for easily memorable listening. However, with all of this in mind, I still boost the rating up to four stars mainly due to the sheer beauty and effort that went into creating the book. If you do get this album, make sure you get the limited edition. It definitely makes up where the CD is lacking, and helps to put you in the right frame of mind for the CD, even though the CD is not quite as timeless as the pages.
Customer Rating:
Summary: There's an elf stuck in my speaker...
Comment: A project by the few beautiful people from Iceland. It seems like every artist that comes out of Iceland never really leaves it, wherever they are located in the world. Like this album for example, it was recorded in all sorts of places with the help of people from all kinds of nationalities, but I cannot help and imagine myself situated in a warm house that is in a very small, isolated, distant land.
The music is a lot more analog and acoustic then I would have imagined, so it really feels infused with human touch, to the point of having a sexy sway. It feels like a gathering of strange nature creatures who know how to play music, very surreal.
On top of everything they made it seem like it was a gathering of very good friends, and it feels like the musicians are supporting each other with great drive.
The whole album kind of takes up, in its own unique way, one of the 'major' recording concepts in todays music: a layered wall of sound. The idea is basically make it sound more menacing and powerful and be able to stuff the entire stereo wall with lots and lots of NOISE. Only this Mum album doesn't sound very compressed, so even though there is so much happening, and so many instruments used, it >feels< very quiet, great contrasts.
Super. Waiting for new Boards of Canada album...
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