múm - Marmalade Fires

The highlight of their impressive Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy album, Marmalade Fires belies its simple, almost lullaby-like melody with lush orchestration, a generous dollop of baroque and an underlying thread of glitchy electronica. They're from Iceland you see, and it seems it's written into their constitution that all bands must write otherworldly music that is at once intimately personal and massively panoramic, with no less than fourteen different instruments playing at the same time. It certainly beats whatever rulebook many of our homegrown acts are following. B-side Rhubarbidoo is also worth a mention for the name alone. [Darren Carle]