Bam's Music Reviews: Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK (múm, 1999)
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Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK is the debut album of the experimental Icelandic band múm, originally released exclusively in Iceland on December 23rd, 1999 under the TMT Entertainment label, after which it would receive multiple rereleases across the globe, most notably with a 20th anniversary remastering in 2019, released then under the Morr Music label. The album, and the band itself, has been somewhat obscure for the 20+ years they've existed, despite the album receiving critical acclaim from multiple sources, with Matt LeMay of Pitchfork deeming it "one of the most deeply, purely emotionally affecting albums of the year" in his review of the album in 2001. I personally happened to stumble onto this album through Spotify's Discover algorithm, and quickly added the whole thing into my lists. Be ready for a strange, yet emotionally powerful album! Without further ado...
Yesterday Was Dramatic (which I will shorten to YWD from here on out) has easily got to be the most experimental album I've reviewed on this blog so far, even beating out the at-times avant garde-sounding "Satori" by Flower Travellin' Band. It also deals with a sound I haven't explored too much here yet even though I'm a huge fan of it - ambient. Most of the album is completely devoid of meaningful lyrics or vocals, limiting it to occasional whispers or pleasant choirs in the background. The instrumentation is also almost completely electronic in nature, incorporating lots of glitchy, repeating tones that almost sound like circuit bending in some instances. For some people, these aspects could be severe dealbreakers, and although I like harsher sounds from time to time, I could feel the same way if the production was haphazard and sloppily put together. Luckily for me, this album executes its experimental sounds almost perfectly!
The instrumentation on the album is absolutely phenomenal, ranging from calm arpeggiated synths on "Random Summer" to almost breakcore-esque percussive elements on tracks like "Sunday Night Just Keeps On Rolling". It creates a feeling of unpredictability while listening, and that feeling helps keep the listener's interest peaked as they wonder just where the album could be headed next, something it handles excellently. The amount of instrumentation can also vary quite heavily between tracks, with some tracks seemingly being only done with one or two synths and a drum machine in total, such as "Smell Memory", while others can have a large variety of both acoustic and electronic instruments to really mix things up.
YWD brings to the table multiple different kinds of emotions through the mix of ambience and experimental synth patterns, ranging from childlike wonder and happiness on tracks like "I'm 9 Today", to melancholic feelings of loneliness and anguish on tracks like "The Ballad Of The Broken String". It can sometimes be very surprising just how emotional and meaningful the album can get, even when the tracks are so simple in instrumentation. It shows just how much a team of talented people can do with limited resources at their disposal.
However, just about all of the tracks I've mentioned here so far pale in comparison to my favorite track from the album - "The Ballad Of The Broken Birdie Records". It's easily the most melancholic and emotional track on the entire album, using distorted and glitched samples to cause a sense of uneasiness while a calm melody plays seemingly in the dead center of the mix, the heavy reverb of it turning it hauntingly beautiful. And that's not even mentioning the highlight of the track - the vocals! A child-like voice quietly sings over the instruments in a mixture of Icelandic and English, making it sound alien and hard to understand to further add to the confusing energy the song is trying to bring across, perfectly encapsulated by the erratic change of melody during the interludes, all culminating in the lyrics detailing the final struggles of a dying bird in a symbolic and tear-jerking manner that turns this into one of my all-time favorite experimental tracks.
YWD is a greatly unappreciated and amazing record from an equally underappreciated project. I could spend hours screaming into people's faces to listen to the album and the rest of their work, since all of it is so incredible. Hopefully múm has the opportunity to continue making music this effective and powerful for years to come. If they do, you can bet I'll be out there, listening to their work, while always remembering that while yesterday might indeed be harsh and dramatic, today will always be OK.
Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK is the debut album of the experimental Icelandic band múm, originally released exclusively in Iceland on December 23rd, 1999 under the TMT Entertainment label, after which it would receive multiple rereleases across the globe, most notably with a 20th anniversary remastering in 2019, released then under the Morr Music label. The album, and the band itself, has been somewhat obscure for the 20+ years they've existed, despite the album receiving critical acclaim from multiple sources, with Matt LeMay of Pitchfork deeming it "one of the most deeply, purely emotionally affecting albums of the year" in his review of the album in 2001. I personally happened to stumble onto this album through Spotify's Discover algorithm, and quickly added the whole thing into my lists. Be ready for a strange, yet emotionally powerful album! Without further ado...
Yesterday Was Dramatic (which I will shorten to YWD from here on out) has easily got to be the most experimental album I've reviewed on this blog so far, even beating out the at-times avant garde-sounding "Satori" by Flower Travellin' Band. It also deals with a sound I haven't explored too much here yet even though I'm a huge fan of it - ambient. Most of the album is completely devoid of meaningful lyrics or vocals, limiting it to occasional whispers or pleasant choirs in the background. The instrumentation is also almost completely electronic in nature, incorporating lots of glitchy, repeating tones that almost sound like circuit bending in some instances. For some people, these aspects could be severe dealbreakers, and although I like harsher sounds from time to time, I could feel the same way if the production was haphazard and sloppily put together. Luckily for me, this album executes its experimental sounds almost perfectly!
The instrumentation on the album is absolutely phenomenal, ranging from calm arpeggiated synths on "Random Summer" to almost breakcore-esque percussive elements on tracks like "Sunday Night Just Keeps On Rolling". It creates a feeling of unpredictability while listening, and that feeling helps keep the listener's interest peaked as they wonder just where the album could be headed next, something it handles excellently. The amount of instrumentation can also vary quite heavily between tracks, with some tracks seemingly being only done with one or two synths and a drum machine in total, such as "Smell Memory", while others can have a large variety of both acoustic and electronic instruments to really mix things up.
YWD brings to the table multiple different kinds of emotions through the mix of ambience and experimental synth patterns, ranging from childlike wonder and happiness on tracks like "I'm 9 Today", to melancholic feelings of loneliness and anguish on tracks like "The Ballad Of The Broken String". It can sometimes be very surprising just how emotional and meaningful the album can get, even when the tracks are so simple in instrumentation. It shows just how much a team of talented people can do with limited resources at their disposal.
However, just about all of the tracks I've mentioned here so far pale in comparison to my favorite track from the album - "The Ballad Of The Broken Birdie Records". It's easily the most melancholic and emotional track on the entire album, using distorted and glitched samples to cause a sense of uneasiness while a calm melody plays seemingly in the dead center of the mix, the heavy reverb of it turning it hauntingly beautiful. And that's not even mentioning the highlight of the track - the vocals! A child-like voice quietly sings over the instruments in a mixture of Icelandic and English, making it sound alien and hard to understand to further add to the confusing energy the song is trying to bring across, perfectly encapsulated by the erratic change of melody during the interludes, all culminating in the lyrics detailing the final struggles of a dying bird in a symbolic and tear-jerking manner that turns this into one of my all-time favorite experimental tracks.
YWD is a greatly unappreciated and amazing record from an equally underappreciated project. I could spend hours screaming into people's faces to listen to the album and the rest of their work, since all of it is so incredible. Hopefully múm has the opportunity to continue making music this effective and powerful for years to come. If they do, you can bet I'll be out there, listening to their work, while always remembering that while yesterday might indeed be harsh and dramatic, today will always be OK.
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