Nature's Opera
LFMH 1999
Nature's Opera (Náttúruóperan) is Andri's first play. It was written for a group of young actors at the age of 16-22. The band múm was created during the making of the play. Nature's opera is about a young man looking for a word instead of love. He is looking for a new word because love does not fit the deepest feelings of his heart anymore, it's meaning has been ruined so it just means something close to ”I like you“ or ”fine“ or “good food”. Baldur is the main character, his life is a mess, he never expected to become more than 16 years old, as a child he was always waiting for the nuclear holocaust, then came AIDS that he thought would surely kill him. But then he ends up alive but then a personal apocolypse leads to an inner journey to look for the word instead of love. Everything takes place inside his head where he searches through memories with the help of his drives and his inner heart surgeon and his inner pshychologist. The heart specialist listening to his heart, his pshychologist with binoculars scanning the horizon. His drives driving everything crazy inside his head.
Múm made very beautiful music to the play and performed live on the stage. Múm was formed in 1998 by Orvar Þoreyjarson Smarason and Gunnar Tynes, both from Reykjavik. They had been in a "new wave" band called Andheri who resembled in equal parts The Pixies and the great Swedish band Bob Hund. Andheri released a 7-track EP called "Fallegir osigrar" (“Beautiful defeats”) in 1997 that is available on www.smekkleysa.net. With Múm they wanted to try to play different music and swop old toys for new. Múm's first release (as a duo) were two songs on a split 10" with short-lived combo Spunk called “Stefnumot kafbata” (“Submarine rendez-vous“) in 1998. Five hundred copies were made of the 10" and it is sold out. By this time Múm played it's first gig in Cambridge, England, with Spunk.
By the autumn of 1998 Orvar and Gunnar were asked to make music to the play that was being put up in the Reykjavik MH College and to be written by Andri Snær Magnason. At that point Gunnar and Orvar met the twins Gyda and Kristin Valtysdottir, and Múm became a four-piece. Kristin and Gyda were in the Uruburu-sextett, a band that was just formed for the play. They were in the theater-group of the school but didn't feel like acting so that is the orgin of múm. The music and the play was created at the same time and so influenced each other mutually. The music from the play was released on a limited edition CDR and is totally sold out. Múm and Andri Snær Magnason have collaborated on other projects, the spoken word and music cd “flugmadur" and they made the music for “The blue planet" for the Icelandic National Theatre 2001. The CD is available in a limited edition. All the money goes to charity, recently to The Red Cross for ”Children at War“ project in Palestine, also for a project in India for education of children. Múm has made some great albums. More about múm on randomsummer.com and noisedfisk.com/mumweb
- Director: Harpa Arnardottir
- Music: múm (limited edition cd published 1999)