Some psychologists suggest that the reason we enjoy listening to the sound of the ocean is because it reminds us being in our mothers’ wombs. Honestly, I have no memory at all of what it was like being in my mother’s womb, but I suspect it may have sounded more like Múm. The Icelandic band Múm, that is. And Múm sounds, well, soothing, yes, but sometimes downright disturbing.

On Finally We Are No One, the second effort from Múm, the band invites us to relax into dreamy prenatal bliss. A brief instrumental “Sleep/Swim” (that’s about all you do in the womb, right?) opens the disk with the sounds of thawing electronic ice. This slips into the next track, the album’s prettiest and most accessible, “Green Grass of Tunnel.” Twin sisters Kristín Anna and Gya Valtýsdóttir (pictured on the cover of Belle & Sebastian’s wonderfully named Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant) provide the vocals. Their singing style has a spooky ring to it, and picturing them, I can’t help flashing to The Shining. It’s inevitable, despite the fact that their lilting voices are more infantile than ethereal.

“K/Half Noise” also begins with gentle juvenile droning, which is eventually replaced by deep slow cello sound, against a background of slow industrial clack and clatter, all gradually escalating into a brief storm then receding, the amniotic ocean returning again to calm. “Don't Be Afraid, You Have Just Got Your Eyes Closed” is a twinkly, hypnotic instrumental with, not a drum break or guitar solo, but a sewing machine, er, intermission. And, yeah, what about those unsettling song titles? Not just that one, but “Now There's That Fear Again,” and “I Can't Feel My Hand Any More, It's Alright, Sleep Tight,” not to mention the album’s very name. Unsettling titles for generally gentle, charming songs. Throughout, Múm create a singular realm between the lullaby and the child’s dream, and the album closes in that vein with “The Land Between the Solar Systems,” an eerie 12-minute passage into chilled infantilism.

If their aim is both to lull and cosset, Múm succeed. Finally, We Are No One may not stray much between the womb and the playground, but it’s certainly an enthralling toddle between the two.

Robert Stribley