Dungen: Ta Det Lugnt

Written by: Corey Tate

What seems most interesting about Dungen’s Ta Det Lugnt is that it's one of those works that takes you away from your sense of place and reality and takes you to its own world. No small feat if you’ve ever tried to create art, music, or movies. The best works will temporarily remove you from your current location on the planet and will take you into its own mindspace. The album name translated into english means “take the serene.”

Ta De Lugnt was created by Gustav Ejstes at his mothers farm in Smaland. Maybe the sense of removal from other worldly surroundings helped him write this set of songs the way he did. The now legendary legend says that Gustav would work on his mother’s farm during the day, and then retreat to his recording studio in his grandmother’s basement at night to work on the set of songs that became this album.

The music is an amazing mix of indie rock and 60’s psychedelia. There's no retro nostalgia here – this isn’t some froliced visit to the past. It is music that’s been influenced by elements of folk and some of the great experimentation of sound expansiveness that went on in the second half of the sixties. There are some acoustic guitars, some loudly distorted guitars, and lots of good feedback (used an instrument of its own). The piano is used to invoke a grand sense of majesty in some of the songs. It’s used sparingly, but when it is used to such a powerful degree that its understatement becomes a powerful statement on its own.

And the vibe that gets rolling on some these songs... it’s like one big patchouly soaked guitar excursion.

Then it goes back to pastoral acoustic guitar, without getting lost in acoustic strummingness that seems to afflict a lot of folk music these days. Overstrumming can make all of the notes sound the same, and the acoustic guitar is used here to augment the sound of the songs, not be the centre piece of them.

All of the lyrics are in Swedish – and if you don’t speak Swedish that can be good or bad thing. You can give yourself up to the lyrics and let them mean whatever you want them to mean.

Panda
Pure indie rock mixed with 70’s Thin Lizzy or Big Star. This is the big single you may have heard on the radio or floating around on the interweb. It’s big sounding, triumphant, and the kind of song you will want to play over and over again.

Festival
This introduces the spare acoustic vibe on the album. But part way through the haunting otherworld of echoey piano and shimmering electric guitar ring through.

Ta Det Lugnt
This is great for it’s middle section, where the song breaks down into chaos and feedback. It gets echoey and I can almost imagine on of those 60’s video backdrops of gels or pulsating camera movements zooming in and out on the band. It then transitions through to talking, and then you find yourself in this otherworld of serene horn over the top of a steady cymbal beat and sparing piano riff. And with that, it’s over.

RATING: ***** 4 out of 5 stars

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Recording Label:
Kemado Records

Dungen: Ta Det Lugnt Track List:
01 Chatterboxes
02 Twin Killers
03 Running Thoughts
04 Vivid Cheek Love Song
05 O'Malley, Former Underdog
06 Odyssey
07 Wrong Time Capsule
08 Spirit Ditties of No Tone
09 Scream Team
10 You Can See
11 Midnight Bicycle Mystery
12 After Me the Deluge
13 Siriustar
14 Lemon & Little Lemon
15 Lightening Rod, Run
16 Bone-Dry
17 News from a Bird
18 Spy on You
19 You're Our Two
20 RRRRRRRight