Dungen

It's no secret that while Wolfmother is headlining its July national tour, it is support band Dungen that has so many psychedelic rock fans' tie-dyed knickers in a twist. The main man is Stockholm-based Gustav Ejstes, speaking after the band's recent third tour of America. Playing together for five years now, the touring quartet is by all means a streamlined live unit, learning cohesion through all those days and nights on the road. 'Ta Det Lugnt' (2004), Ejstes' third, is the record that's got the tongues wet, the heads bobbin' and the brains zonked. It measures sweltering leads with big Swedish-sung hooks, hints of traditionalism, exoticism and fuzzy sweaty melodies that'd make ABBA blush.

What Ejstes lacks in range of vocabulary he makes up for with enthusiasm. He doesn't go into too much detail perhaps for this very reason. One can imagine that he'd be even more enthusiastic if speaking about music in his native tongue. Pondering the secret to great psych rock, he starts and stops his response before each sentence is done, the word "Music" spat out time and again. He stops for a second, checking himself, formulating the right answer.

"A good album is made from the heart, and by your soul." He really needn't say more. And he doesn't.

"I've been writing since I was a kid," says Ejstes, singer and player of guitar, bass, drums, keys, fiddle and flute. He recorded the majority of 'Ta Det Lugnt' alone, with guests frequenting the studio. He began by making hip-hop and sampling, discovering a plethora of classic music as he plundered record libraries. Nowadays he is trying to master the fiddle under the expert tutelage Jonny Soling, a Swedish fiddler icon. Ejstes' singing voice, meanwhile, is earnest and nimble, rarely breaking out into a wild howl, rather highlighting his fondness for big pop melodies. Bandmate Reine Fiske's lead guitar work on the other hand is so fried it could give you a heart attack. He spills over the edges, screes and scrambles and shreds, but never squanders. Add to it Ejstes' octopus-spankin' drumming and phased baroque interludes on various keyboards and flute and you've a recipe for satisfaction. It reeks of classic Amon DŸŸl II, especially at the end of track four, when everything is molten, panning from speaker to speaker, the drums and percussion bashing out a teenage lust-stomp, the guitars diving like sick birds of paradise. "I just make music the way I want to and I don't do it by any purpose to be original or to have some ideas behind it. It's just I like the way it sounds." Ejstes mixes things up. From the immediately melodic choruses to the extended passages of heavy jamming, the cut-and-pasted collages or rickety piano, church organ and the jazzed-up outro to the title track, the range of instrumental tones and moods smacks of classic progressive rock without the doomed clichŽd idolatry attributable to Dungen's immediate peers.

Dungen's label Subliminal Sounds has, among other things, released archival recordings from '60s behemoth PŠrson Sound, whose members since 1970 have played as TrŠd GrŠs Och Stenar (Trees, Grass And Stones). Ejstes admits his fondness for those classic Swedish sounds, trying his best to keep up with the endless stream of psych reissues. At the same time he has been collecting early Turkish traditional music while keeping up with his first love - '90s hip-hop. Yet he doesn't envision Dungen ever branching out into the latter. "Definitely not!" he quips nervously, the pitch of his voice noticeably rising a coupla notches. He doesn't fancy himself as an MC. "No! Definitely not!" he reassures. "Hip-hop is music that in many ways can be played, lived and everything but...I will not start making hiphop."

Dungen has taken Ejstes all over the orld, even South America, where apparently the headline act plays first and the night ascends into an all-in party. One wonders if South American music fans are as crazy as their football fans. "Crazy? I don't know. It was small clubs and the people were enthusiastic and very nice to us. I don't know if they were crazy..." he trails off, a hint of a grin in his voice. So I do have them mixed up with the football fans. It's World Cup time and Sweden is looking like reaching the final 16. But Ejstes, although patriotic as the next man, has never really had time for sport. "Unfortunately I'm not a sports fan. I do have a lot of respect for that but I'm not a follower." If it means there's more time for music, one can't blight him one bit.

Lenin Simos

Dungen plays at the Rocket Bar on Thur 13 July, and supports Wolfmother at Thebarton Theatre on Fri 14 July.