It is such a cheap trick to put two songs by one artist on a mix-tape, especially one after another, but in this case, it is well warranted. These songs are also the songs of saddened children, but not the violent despair of Xiu Xiu's, but the melancholy of illustrator Edward Gorey's characters. Besides, it will take at least two songs to wash out the taste of the last song.

Mum tends to get unfair comparisons to another, more famed older sister of their native Icelandic shores, there is some merit for the shared innocence that they both blend into their eclectic folk with electric leaning songs. Here, in these two songs, Mum manages to topple Sugarcube's ice imp of with astounding measure of craft, earnestness, and the ability to make the most of understated frailty. Every second of both tracks has sound, yet still manages to elicit the image of silence. To gain this, the trio made part of the album on an abandoned tanker. And those elements come through in every song: sea spray and sway, plus abandonment.

Sailors have their songs, tales of the rollicking sea, and we love to sing them. But for every son of the sea, there, behind him, standing on the dock, is a long-tressed wife or a gray-bonneted daughter waving hard enough that their sailor see them, knowing that it might be the last time either sees each other again. These are their songs.