Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Say "Swedish psychedelic rock" to a musically inclined foreigner, and chances are they'll think of The Soundtrack of Our Lives, an excellent stonesy outfit from Gothenburg. But in New York, a few people who shop at Other Music may think of Dungen instead.
Dungen ("the Grove") combine psychedelic 70s prog rock with Swedish ethno, fiddle and flute. They just released their third album, Tio Bitar
In the age of the mp3 file, albums are once again less important than songs. (In fact, the word "album" originally referred to a physical album with pockets where you could stick your 45-rpm vinyl singles: my dad's album mainly contained Elvis songs.) So I won't moan about the album filler pieces. Instead I recommend all psych listeners to get (by whatever means you deem appropriate) the following four songs:
- "Familj" (Family). A lush and dreamy piece with an ethno melody figure.
- "C visar vägen" (C shows the way). A soft instrumental with classical violin and banjo.
- "Du ska inte tro att det ordnar sig" (You shouldn't think it's gonna be OK). Groove rock with a folky march beat and lyrics alluding to Astrid Lindgren.
- "Svart är himlen" (Black is the sky). Another soft song, this one with flute and grand piano.
[More blog entries about music, rock, psychedelic, dungen, Sweden; musik, rock, psykedelia, dungen]
Comments
We-e-ell, the oldest albums we have at home are not for records that are either 45-rpm, vinyl, or singles. The album is older than that; it came with the old 78-rpm records. The part about physical albums with pockets is correct, though.
Posted by: Johan Anglemark | May 8, 2007 4:27 PM
I'll slip out of this tight space by confusing you: have you got any evidence that 78-rpm records were ever called "albums"? Did they even have more than one song per side?
Posted by: Martin R | May 8, 2007 4:48 PM
Hmm. Weird. Given that there are very few Swedish science bloggers, a remarkable number of them seem to review this album ;-)
(In other words, Harald Cederlund also reviewed it on his blog some days ago.)
Posted by: Malin Sandstr�m | May 9, 2007 5:49 AM
Cool! When will you review it? (-;
Posted by: Martin R | May 9, 2007 6:36 AM
Actually it is their fourth album - I really recommend you to listen to their first which was re-realeased in 2005 "Dungen 1999-2001" if you've missed that one!
Posted by: Harald Cederlund | May 9, 2007 3:48 PM
Martin wrote "Did they even have more than one song per side?"
Yes, Martin, they did sometimes. I had several when I still lived in Sweden, some of which (not all) had several songs per side.
For what it's worth, the American jazz musicians of the day used to refer to them as albums. But that's over here, in the outskirts of culture...LOL.
Posted by: Christina | May 9, 2007 9:47 PM