Örvar Smárason

A founding member of the experimental indie-electronic outfit Múm, Icelandic composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, and fiction writer Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason has been embedded in Reykjavik’s music community since the late ’90s and is likewise recognized at home for his poetry and novellas. After encountering Aphex Twin’s work, he formed Múm in 1997 alongside Gunnar Örn Tynes and the classically trained Valtýsdóttir twins, Gyða and Kristín Anna. Several singles and remixes preceded the group’s 2000 debut full-length, Yesterday Was Dramatic -- Today Is OK, issued via TMT/Thule domestically and Tugboat in the U.K.; all four members were still in their late teens when the album appeared and earned praise for its inventive handling of both conventional instruments and everyday objects. The Morr Music remix collection Please Smile My Noise Bleed, featuring contributions from ISAN and Arovane, surfaced in 2001, followed the next year by the Fat Cat release Finally We Are No One. Gyða departed to pursue her studies prior to the arrival of Múm’s third album, Summer Make Good, in spring 2004; the record entered the charts in Ireland and France, and the band closed out the year with the Dusk Log EP. In 2005 the quartet joined forces with the National Dutch Chamber Orchestra for a Holland Festival commission drawing on Iannis Xenakis, while Smárason simultaneously published his first novella, Úfin, Strokin, and the poetry volume Gamall Þrjótur, Nýjir Tímar. Shortly after Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir and Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson launched FM Belfast, Smárason augmented the band for a 2006 festival appearance; although the lineup fluctuated between three and eight members onstage, he contributed to their 2008 debut album How to Make Friends. Múm reconvened in the studio and also issued the BBC-recorded 2002 Peel Session as a live album. Reduced to Smárason and Tynes for 2007’s Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, the duo enlisted guitarist/vocalist/violinist Ólöf Arnalds, trumpeter/keyboardist Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson, vocalist/cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, percussionist Samuli Kosminen, and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mr. Silla; another Smárason poetry collection, To Fruits Turn the Youth, appeared the same year. Múm tracked their fifth album, Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know, across Finland, Estonia, and Iceland, releasing it in 2009, while the Christmas EP Gleðileg Jól and FM Belfast’s sophomore effort Don’t Want to Sleep both arrived in 2011. A 2012 compilation of early material, Early Birds, preceded the surprise 2013 single “Whistle,” a collaboration with Kylie Minogue; that September Múm issued their sixth album Smilewound, which included the Minogue track and welcomed Gyða Valtýsdóttir back after a decade’s absence. Smárason and FM Belfast unveiled Brighter Days in 2014 and Island Broadcast in 2017; during the latter year he also joined Sin Fang and Sóley on the collaborative project Team Dreams, issued in early 2018.