Dungen – Ta Det Lugnt (Subliminal Sounds)
Wonderful psychedelic rock and pop from Sweden. This is their (his) third release. It is psych rock but has lots of acoustic/folk moments and even pop moments. This band is absolutely one of the better contemporary psych bands going. The band is primarily one man, Gustav Ejstes who writes most of the music, sings and plays guitar bass, “klaviatur”, viola and flute. This reminds me a lot of the faux French psych side project of Gong called “Dashiell Hedayat” and of course fellow sweeds Parson Sounds. This blows away many other current psych bands because he seems to care about his songs not just a bag of retro-effect-tricks. Most of the tracks are not in English.
**1. Jazzy drums intro into harder, raw guitar, rocking. The track goes through a number of changes including a couple instrumental jams. Urgent and dramatic. Ends with lots of feedback and drums.
2. Pure pop psych that reminds me a bit of Bevis Frond.
3. Starts acoustic and pretty. Even when the drums come in it’s very acoustic sounding. Mellow and poppy, like the band Love. It does go off into a trippy, organ and keyboard heavy jam. Ends with a little piano section.
**4. Starts with strings, viola? Acoustic with a slight Beatles leaning. After about 5 minutes the song changes into an electric jam with some screaming guitar.
5. Keyboards and subdued vocals doing pop. Damn, then the electric guitar comes in with a somewhat simple riff that comes damn close to boogie rock. The title and chorus translate to “take the serene”? The guitar solos get heavier and heavier not unlike some Hendrix and about 4 minutes into the song it completely changes to keys and spoken word and then goes into a mellow jazzy jam with a sax instead of guitar.
6. Keys to begin, into a slow waltz. Doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
7. Mellow organ.
**8. Heavier angular rocker. Earnest.
10. Poppy with keys. A little bit lounge-y.
**11. Cool, trippy quick drums with keyboards and organ. Guitar shows up and noodles around. Instrumental.
13. Sad sounding harder rock. It’s slow and plodding with keyboards but heavier guitar. I like it.
Great stuff! -mph