Dungen On Their Breakthrough Album, Ta Det Lungt
Incorporating elements of ’60s psychedelia, progressive rock, free jazz and instrumental ambience, Dungen is a Swedish outfit headed up by Gustav Ejstes. In the live setting, the group is a four-piece, but Ejstes writes and performs most of the material on the band’s albums. After a brief stint on a major label, Dungen returned to their usual home of Subliminal Sounds to record 2004’s Ta Det Lugnt.
In this excerpt from their Fireside Chat on RBMA Radio, Ejstes and band member Reine Fiske talk about the recording of the album. Close to giving up, its unlikely success in the United States led to a second wind for the group and their career.
Reine Fiske
The last record. It was supposed to be the last record.
Gustav Ejstes
We were so pissed off. We were making each other angry all the time and drinking all day at my mom’s place. We borrowed the house. They went for a vacation. We had the drum kit in my mom’s bedroom. We were playing so loud and we were so pissed off and everything. That was the making of that record.
I continued my fiddle [career] at school for another year and I was supposed to really get into the Swedish folk music scene. Then [Subliminal Sounds head] Stefan Kery called me and said, “Okay, they have picked up Ta Det Lungt in the United States. There’s a buzz around Dungen in New York,” and I was so paranoid. I was like, “You kidding, this is some kind of trick? I don’t know, I can’t take it.” Then it all went pretty fast. We were invited to play Vice parties. All of a sudden we were in the hipster center in New York. That developed into a lot of intense touring for, I don’t know, two years and mostly in the US which was amazing.
I think now, when I reflect on it, it’s a classic thing. You have a hit and you’re supposed to be touring and do all this stuff. They just push it and you overwork it, what would you say? You get exhausted and you get fractured. There are fractures in the band and you start to hate yourself, you hate everyone else and [act] destructive.
Reine Fiske
First of all, all the songs were sung in Swedish. Before that album, to get gigs in Sweden was much easier than getting gigs in England or in Germany or the United States, because I think people just didn’t get it really. Maybe they could get some of the music and the attitude or the sounds or our way of playing together, improvisation, whatever. It was just too difficult to get it.
That also created a lot of friction, because you go to Germany to play and it’s like ten people show up. Is it worth it? We all wanted to play, but it was still really hard to just realize that no one is really interested in this. You might as well just record and don’t tour.
Gustav Ejstes
[That’s why Ta Det Lungt is] a very special record and a very special period for me and us in our lives. Now I’m very proud of it, of course. Especially when I meet people who explain how much it means to them.
Reine Fiske
There were a lot of things going into the album. It’s like recordings from two years, different recordings. Then we decided to just make it more like a collage thing. It was actually my idea from the beginning. Just to be able to get in all these different kinds of vibes in a record, like, “Here’s an instrumental part.” “This part is amazing, we should put this on the record.”
