Dungen is the work of one Gustav Ejstes, a Swedish native who has taken a furtive interest in Hip Hop and spun it out into some of the most inventive, and unusual sounding songs you are likely to hear for some time.
Festival starts life as a folk tune packed full of lush vocal harmonies and a chilled ambience that immediately makes your eyelids feel remarkably heavy. Things suddenly change pace though as the song changes direction without warning. Suddenly the simple drum pattern becomes more roomy. Steeped in reverb and with a relentless thrash of the cymbals, it wakes you from an impending slumber. Next comes an inexplicable wave of noise that takes the song down a more proggy route (the kind that Radiohead explored with the guitar solos on OK Computer). Things finish up with a solitary piano line that could have closed any number of Morecambe and Wise sketches. Weird is not quite the word. Fascinating perhaps is.
Sjutton continues this bizarre fusion of styles, slapping flute solos, Keith Moon style drumming and raggedly recorded guitar together. It is intensely European and cosmopolitan and it sounds like the kind of world Ejstes lives in is well worth a visit.
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