lost in translation

I'm new to the rules of blogging - is it okay to post something when you know next to nothing about an artist?? I bought Dungen's "Ta Det Lugnt" earlier this week and have played pretty much nothing else since then. I spoke to Marc-o about having a ban on the phrase "psychedelic masterpiece" and then this bugger turns up!

Dungen - Panda

This album sounds like something from about 35 years ago, something you might catch on an Arts programme late at night on a hotel TV in an unfamiliar city - strange and weird, groovy and funky, not quite right. There are hints of Can, Miles Davis and Frank Zappa throughout the album alongside poppier cuts like "Festival".

Dungen - Festival

The main thing this makes me think of is Os Mutantes - another band that had all the constituent parts of yer average everyday psychedelic pop band, but then something happened in the translation. The overall effect is kind of like when you use one of those online translators to write something in English, translate it to a foreign language and then translate it back to English again. The parts make sense, but the way they're put together is new and slightly baffling - and it has a kind of alien "artsiness" to it.

Anyway, I'm waffling. Dungen is the work (mostly) of one man, Gustav Ejstes, and the Dungen website describes "Ta Det Lugnt" as an "uncompromising, multifaceted musical trip straight in to your head and deep out in to the Swedish forests".

This is the second post that I've done where I must give props to kill all artists - Jerimee has been banging on about Dungen for a while now!

Lots of other blogs have posted tracks from this album (in more coherent posts) so if you need more you know where to look. But this is great, buy it!

Visit Dungen
Buy Ta Det Lugnt