Fifth studio album from Iceland's eccentric pop maestros, mum. Sometimes Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know sounds naively utopic, but it always manages to stay effortless and pure. As usual, the songs are brimming with unusual sounds, this time much of the songs revolve around a lightly prepared piano, hammered dulcimer, a string quartet, marimbas, guitars, ukuleles, and in the background of a few of the songs one can hear Orvar's parent's parakeet singing with the piano. The album was recorded in countless different places in four different countries, although most of it was done in mum's native Iceland. Gunnar Orn Tynes moved to a cabin in the countryside where much of the album sprang to life, but as always, mum had a hard time staying put and recorded in both Estonia and Finland. In Estonia they borrowed a beautiful, many hundred-year-old house in Leigo, a place with hundreds of lakes, where they wrote new songs and recorded with the Estonian Suisapaisa mixed choir. Much of the music was hatched in the middle of Iceland's political turmoil and uprising at the time. The Icelandic government was forced to resign after intermittent civil unrest and the constant banging of pots and pans. By stretching the imagination, one can imagine a link between the turbulent political situation and the serene idealism hidden in the music.
