What's the keyboard shortcut for an umlaut?
Sweden's Dungen, aka Gustav Ejstes.
I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that I find greater satisfaction in listening to records that prove difficult to discover, or headstrong on first listen. Hence, a lot of the albums you’ll find me writing about are probably not going to be records that are hyped to no end, like the new Interpol for example. Plenty of other scribes can wax endlessly on the chic cool of Paul Banks. That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes agree with them; I’d just rather make use of my thesaurus in describing bands buoyed a bit further out to sea. Or, in the case of Jens Lekman and today’s subject, across the ocean in Sweden.
You may never read a word about Dungen in a popular U.S. rag. (Pitchfork notwithstanding.) The reason has nothing to do with the quality of songwriting, the brilliance of execution or just plain poor distribution. It’s far easier to explain: Dungen—aka multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes—doesn’t sing in English. He sings in his native Swedish tongue. And because of that, I doubt the American press will waste much ink on him.
I was a bit skeptical of the Pitchfork review, which assigns this album a 9.3 rating and says “I doubt 2004 will birth a more blissful sonic encounter than Ta Det Lugnt.” Surely, if this album were as good as advertised then I would have heard at least a peep about it, right? Against my better sense, I ordered the damn thing, which is currently available only as an import and can be purchased from sources like Parasol, Other Music, and Forced Exposure. What the fuck, I’d just struck it rich with Jens Lekman, so I was feeling particularly kind to our Swedish musical brethren.
Less than $20 later, I pushed play.
Ta Det Lugnt, Dungen's third album.
Song one, “Panda”: A sloppy drum fill gains strength. A hyper bass line joins under a ragged guitar riff. And 30 seconds later the entire bottom drops out as the verse begins. A mellow guitar passage drowns itself in reverb as layered, harmonized vocals wash over the top. Dare I say just a minute into the album that Dungen has already managed to sound like Neu! and Cream, with Keith Moon on drums? Fuck, this is good stuff.
Song two, “Gjort bort sig”: Bright, classic rock guitar hollers over Ejstes, who on this song has taken a liking to Ray Davies. Masterful guitar noodling embellishes the song throughout, lending “Gjort bort sig” a trippy feel that’s similar yet more ethereal than fellow countrymen The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Several songs on this album bare comparison to TSOOL, except that Dungen’s songs are way more mindfuck psychedelic, like an untamed Iron Butterfly rockin’ a house party hosted by The Electric Prunes.
Song three, “Festival”: “Festival,” an upbeat, acoustic folk-rock song that wouldn’t sound out of place on Zeppelin III, finally pushes Ejstes’ vocals all the way to the forefront, forcing the listener to grapple with whether they care about his non-English lyrics. I sure don’t. The music and singing are both more than capable of holding down my interest. (And singing in a foreign language actually adds to the mystique.) The song eventually turns on its ear as a piano is pounded into submission and smothered in reverb. Like a fresh, still-life watercolor being hosed down, the instrumental bridge completely reinvents the song.
Song four, “Du E For Fin For Mig”: (Pardon my inability to properly add the umlauts; I’m clueless when it comes to keyboard shortcuts.) A melancholy string arrangement performed by Ejstes, who as I said earlier is a multi-instrumentalist, suggests that a transitional song is in the workings. However, the strings soon fade away, and we’re left with a song within a song—another acoustic folk song built with sturdy strumming, handclaps, and layered vocals. Ejstes reintroduces the string theme before flirting with a warped flute passage. The style of this song—which creeps back and forth throughout the album—is reminiscent of the moody genre-bending pop-rock of Brazil’s Os Mutantes. At this rate, I have to expect Dungen to break into Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow” anytime soon. Then, the song within a song bends around a curve and becomes…a song within a song within a song? Seriously, we’re only six minutes into this tune and now Ejstes is wailing away on his electric a la Hendrix while his backing band makes a raucous—or at least as much noise as they could muster with a cowbell, an acoustic guitar, drums and bass. The jam disintegrates to leave us with the guitar solo, which at this point sounds as if it’s being attacked by a sonic machine gun. The song closes with a weary guitar droning to its defeat. All this in a shade over eight minutes!
Dungen rocks, dude.
As the album progresses—splashing hints of avant-garde jazz, Left Banke-inspired pop, euro-trash Vampyros Lesbos, Bjorn Olsson-like ambient and Krautrock into the sonic landscape like acid rain—it becomes clear that Dungen is accomplished both in terms of musicianship and songwriting. It’s also clear that their schizophrenic tendencies are to be encouraged. Ravaging several moods within a five-minute song, Ejstes and company find success where several others dare to go. Much like Olivia Tremor Control—known for their own ambling neo-psych-pop masterpiece …Dusk at Cubist Castle—Ejstes rarely conforms to traditional sense when it comes to constructing a rock song. That Dungen’s ambition rarely slays the song is a testament to how fucking wonderful of a record Ta Det Lugnt is. This is the closest we’re likely to come in modern times to re-envisioning the radical sense of freedom the rock and roll community experienced as the ‘60s bled into the ‘70s and one drug gave way to another. That a 20-something kid from Sweden has tapped into this kind of emotion and captured it in a recording that sounds of that time is…frighteningly genius.
I could go on, but words can only stretch so far, and I already feel like I’ve lost a battle in trying to describe this record to you. I guess I’ve won the war, however, if you choose to buy it.
For more info on Dungen or to listen to some songs, see.
Doug, I am beginning to wonder about this strange infatuation with Sweden you seem to have developed of late. Listening to too many bands whose member have an illogically large number of consents in their mostly unpronounceable names is just one small step away from mail ordering fermented Herring.
-Erik
By 
, at 1:14 PM
1:14 PMDoug, I am beginning to wonder about this strange infatuation with Sweden you seem to have developed of late. Listening to too many bands whose member have an illogically large number of consents in their mostly unpronounceable names is just one small step away from mail ordering fermented Herring.
-Erik