Being a full-time touring band is much harder work than Múm ever could have imagined. The Icelandic foursome--

Örvar Póreyjarson Smárason, Gunnar Örn Tynes, and twin sisters Gyda and Kristín Anna Valtysdóttir

, along with touring drummer Samuli Koskinen--embarked on their first U.S. trip in support of their sophomore full-length, Finally We Are No One (on U.K. label Fat Cat), just a week ago, and already they're having trouble negotiating the complicated world of late nights, early mornings, long drives, and interviews via cell phone from the bus.

When I call for an interview at my appointed time, the tour manager is both apologetic and protective. "I don't think now's the best time," he says. "The kids are all asleep, passed out in the back." It is 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon.

Twenty-four hours later, the same tour manager is attempting to coax one of the members of Múm to the phone. "Gunni.... Oh, Gunni bunny..." he coos, in the sort of melodic singsong one might use on a very small child. After a surreal interlude of giggles and nonsensical noises, a sleepy-sounding

Gunnar Örn Tynes answers the phone. When I ask where they are, he mumbles, "I am driving near Rocky Mount, North Carolina and Richmond and Williamsburg and Norfolk and...." He pauses. "I don't know where we are."

Particularly after listening to Finally, it is difficult to imagine a band like Múm dealing with the rigors of life on the road. Finally is a delicate album, awash in little-girl vocals (think Julee Cruise or Allison Shaw), downy cellos, violins, and soft electronics that flicker like blinking eyes. There is a childlike aura of wonder that surrounds everything. One gets the feeling that sending this band out on tour is a little like asking Sesame Street's Elmo to join the cast of Sex and the City: They're simply too wide-eyed and innocent to take it all in.

"We are all just kids," Gunnar says, interrupting himself briefly to announce that the bus is passing the Philip Morris offices. "It's maybe something connected to simplicity. We're simple people. We don't discuss how we want to sound or how we want to look. If it's something you sense [in the music], it's something that comes from us."

They may preach simplicity, but much of Múm's music is written and recorded using the concepts of boundless imagination and unfettered creativity: Everything is possible, and everything is a good idea. Even the processes the band uses to record are unconventional--Finally was produced and finalized in a remote lighthouse off the coast of Iceland. The band's equipment had to be flown in via helicopter, and they followed in a tiny boat.

Múm have also played several concerts that were broadcast into a swimming pool through an underwater speaker. Listeners were free to swim or float, but could only hear the music while submerged. In short, they had to be simultaneously isolated and engaged to fully participate in the experience. Two tracks on Finally, "Sleep/Swim" and "Faraway Swimmingpool," were even written to sound most complete in an underwater environment.

This sort of off-the-wall creativity and "anything goes" attitude bleeds into every note of Finally, and the songs envelop the listener in a sonic womb. Though the tempos are relatively downbeat, it's not sleeping music; rather, it's music that inspires one's own imaginative impulses and allows the mind to become wholly absorbed in other activities. "I think this music goes perfectly well in the background, as in the foreground," Gunnar notes. "I wouldn't like to be categorized as background music."

Múm's outpouring of creativity begs the question of whether an unconventional tour--perhaps underwater--might be better suited to the band's sensibilities than the drudgery of nightclubs, promo spots, and long hauls in the early morning. "We've been trying to hook up some underwater speakers and do an underwater tour in swimming pools, but I don't think it's possible because of security rules," Gunnar replies. "We're thinking about doing it in the sea. We'd get a boat and ride the coastline and have a nonstop concert."

When I suggest that perhaps they'd find a pod of whales trailing after them, Gunnar laughs. "Who knows? Maybe we can make friends."