in addition to two powerbooks, múm uses quite an impressive range of musical instruments to create their rich and melodic tunes: it starts with the more usual guitars and synthesizers and doesn't stop with accordion and glockenspiel.

unplug the telephone, lean back and enjoy their albums "yesterday was dramatic, today is OK" and "finally we are no one".

They played a wonderful concert at the knitting factory in new york city on july 26.

jisoo and i, both editorial interns at gURL.com, had a hard time until we were finally able to conduct an interview with múm: all was set up for us to interview them before they went on-stage. unfortunately, the band was nowhere to be found. dana, the pr woman wrung her hands a lot and smiled helplessly to convince us that she'd love to help us out but simply couldn't.

but we weren't that easy to get rid of. we tried again, after the show: I was full of admiration for those kids that had managed to catapult me into a world of fairies and rainbows. I have to admit that I was full of cidre, too and, who knows?, maybe it was a happy coincidence that múm's tour manager decided to rather not have us quiz the tired children. maybe I would have just grinned, devoid of any halfway intelligent questions. ajay, the tour manager promised us a telephone interview. better than nothing.

do I really need to say that the telephone interview never happened? the more pessimistic amongst you might have guessed that already. but you also guessed correctly that I didn't just torture you for nothing: they might not like to speak to interns cum music journalists directly but they did answer the questions we sent them via email. and we only had to remind them once.

here it is, the uncensored version of jisoo's and my email interview:

1) the crowd at the knitting factory seemed to be really into your music, they recognized songs at the first chords and we were wondering how you feel about your growing popularity? is it still strange or have you gotten used to it already?

Gyda: of course you're happy when the shows are sold out and we manage to put smiles on some people's faces but i don't really pay that much attention to our popularity.

2) questions for the twins who come from a classical music background: what do you think is the difference between playing classical music and playing in a band? what made you want to play in a band rather than continuing to play classical music?

Gyda: i wasn't interested in playing the cello when I was a kid so I quit. i started playing cello again around the same time as i started playing in the band. i had also been fooling around with my father's accordion and guitar. but i felt that i wasn't technically capable of expressing what i really wanted.

sometimes people are afraid of loosing there spontaneity or sincerity by learning (an instrument) but i think it's a big misunderstanding. maybe, if you go and take singing lessons and you are made to sing in a certain way that you don't want to sing in, then it might not help at all. but if you practice your voice for yourself it will only give you freedom to be sincere.

3) do you think all the years of constant practicing paid off?

i think my constant practicing on my cello have really paid off in anything i do, i'm still learning and i think i still got a lot to learn. practicing without a awareness, spontaneity and passion will not pay off, though. and classical training can really kill your creativity so for me taking part in a different music scene is very important.

4) is touring as romantic, exciting, rock'n'roll as people say?

touring is hard work! this is actually our first long tour (3months).

5) your new album sounds different than "yesterday was dramatic, today is OK" (mum's first album, released on Thule in 2000). did you consciously decide to change the structure of the songs (more vocals, shorter length, more distinctly recognizable songs, ...)?

we didn't make any decisions of how we wanted the album to sound like. some of the songs on "finally we are no one" had been developing for a long time and i think that playing them life had a big effect on the structure of the songs.

6) how big is FatCat's (mum's record label) involvement when making creative decisions?

Fatcat give us full creative freedom.

5) at least to us, your music brings back childhood memories, there always seems to be a dreamy element. but what are your actual inspirations for making music?

Gyda: i know i'm only speaking for myself now: there is a lot of music I like or find interesting but not that much that really appeals to me - I think that is my biggest inspiration of making my own music. of course you have to do some compromises when you're in a band but you can learn a lot from the people you're working with.

i think the elements in our music are coming from everything we have taken in during our lives, or they must be......don't they?