Mùm

(I encourage you to press play before reading)

Welcome to the dark side of the Postal Service.

During my senior year of high school the banana-pancake Jack Johnson phase was exploding for the wannabe art kids and "accidentally  to-public" potheads, along side with that "hot fuzz" buzz by The Killers. For the band nerds and pre-teen goth kids it was AFI and The Black Eye'd Peas, peeling their way in with the sounds of emo-skunk grime. Needless to say I was apart of both of these groups, but I was also secretly keeping some music to my self. I'd drive to school listening to the local college radio station, relentless hoping that when I got to school I'd get into a verbal argument over economics or some war about "terror". But then there was Death Cab For Cutie. 

Ben Gibbard -- my nightingale. He'd let me have a good silent cry. I always felt I was long over due for an angry "dead-journal entry", so that came in handy too, but once I discovered the Postal Service, all those raw emotions and 'goofy feelings about girls' clicked. I was satisfied being melancholy but yet synthetically bubbly -- in the trendy way Lite-Brite could have been, but damn-it, it just was art!

Now that I'm in a post-graduate life, I found that I had sat down my Postal Service record sessions a long time ago (but not in a galaxy far far away...). Life had taken its course and I had gotten older. Like anyones life, there had been a series of up's and down's or "life altering" experiences/people. The shift of adulthood wasn't something I had noticed immediately, but when friends began to move away and letters from crazy ex-girl friends weren't fun to share anymore, I felt the heat of the water that had been boiling for sometime.

When I discovered Mum, I really took the time to sit down and listen to them. I don't recall the day I found them, but I'm certain that my ears felt like cellophane and my craving for a vintage smoke rocketed to it's highest potential. Their soft patterns of electro glitch beats, and kitchen noises are tucked into a whirlwind of emotion. The piano sounds like its being hit by a mallet made of silly putty, and the bass and percussion are recorded through a walkie-talkie... or gramophone. Their whole sound just screams, layers!
I felt like I did in high school when I found the Postal Service. I chanced upon a band that completes a small niche in my life. I listen to them in the car, walking to class (rain preferably) and in bed when I should be writing. 

Glass Fractal

The Album, We Finally Are No One, essentially sounds like rainy day emotion wrapped up into a glass fractal and set in front of a candle. I honestly have nothing to say about their cord progression, beat-choices, or lack of unintelligible singing, because I feel like I just can't. And like I said, its the dark side or adult version of the Postal Service. Meaning just that, its not something many people would catch if they are consumed in rotisserie pop music, regurgitated every year.
There is a work of genius here, and I suggest you listen to it.
If you like Mum you should check out: Seabear, The Album Leaf and Broadcast.