Slate Blue and Absolute

Listening to something new from Sweden.   My mind is back to a winter in Stockholm, coming up the elevator from the Kungstragaden subway station, which, it was explained to me, being quite obvious once it was stated, meant “Kings Garden”, and seeing the hard side of Stockholm, that felt cold and unforgiving, the jarring multi-ethnicity casting me back to the Bronx when I’d been prepping on Gustavus Adolphus, hard cold streets with sorry seventies modernity and early morning garbage collection imbuing the city with something steamy and gritty to anchor the quaint, commercial tourist Christmas of Gamla Stan, where, admittedly the candle fires burning outside the stores are irresistibly alluring.  Very dark late in the morning, very dark early in the afternoon and the sea, which is everywhere in Stockholm, looking slate blue and absolute.

Dungen are from Stockholm and I am listening to their new album, “Allas Sak”, which means “everyone’s thing.”  The front man is another Gustav, one Gustav Ejstes and the sound is tasteful, contemporary psychedelia.  And I don’t know if they’re in Stockholm this winter, or just what version of their hometown they prefer.  No doubt they could show me many parts of that city that would round out my appreciation.  Listening to the Swedish language sung, in lovely, distorted harmonies, I’m not sure that I would necessarily place it.  Nothing about it sounds characteristically “Nordic.”  Though the mix is clean and crystalline like something made between a bright blue sky and a slate blue ocean.  That the language is nonsensical means I can play it while I work.   The only word I know in the language, besides ‘King’s Garden’ is “tak*.”  Cognition and is therefore  unlikely.   I can’t work with a trialogue.

Monday and half the world, or at least half my professional world, is on vacation.  I’ll work.  I’ll catch up on things.  I’m drawn to the idea of having life on the back- foot as I step into the New Year.  I’ll prepare a cauldron of this heady brew, by winnowing my to-do list and being regular about all the things I’ve told myself to do regularly.

Finding, listening to, new music, finding a way to share new music with my children; make this regular. 

Lunch with the older one just now.  Thumbs were trending upward for Dungen.


* Thanks