Zen Sounds 061: Blue Lake

American minimalism meets Swedish #cottagecore: Jason Dungan plays ambient folk on self-built string instruments

Stephan Kunze

Jun 17, 2023

Jason Dungan alias Blue Lake © Alex Kozobolis

Prologue

Since the start of the year, I’ve been publishing on a self-imposed weekly schedule. I happen to find that my writing ability works like a muscle – it constantly needs to be trained. A weekly cadence simply means good exercise for me.

That being said, I am going to take a summer break for a few weeks. I love the idea of a “Swedish summer”, spending the warm months outside in nature, working on analog things, living life.

Like last year, I won’t actually be going to Sweden. I’m planning a few camping trips to the sea and maybe, hopefully the mountains.

Unlike last year, I will not be able to take time off completely, so I still have client work to do, but at least I want to minimize non-essential screen time. Not to say my newsletter isn’t essential, but I guess everyone will cope a few weeks without my recommendations.

Until I come back, I will:

hike and run as many trails as possible,
eat fresh food from our garden every day,
enjoy some afternoon naps in the hammock,
read a few paper books and
not wear shoes most of the time.

Before I leave, I’d like to recommend an album that I sense will be an essential companion over the summer months. I hope you will like it as much as I do.

Blue Lake – “Sun Arcs”

(Tonal Union, 2023)

This album sounds like the definite soundtrack to Swedish summer – which doesn’t come as a surprise, as American born, Denmark based composer Jason Dungan wrote “Sun Arcs” in an actual cabin in the woods of Southern Sweden, shutting out the distractions of everyday life, going for long walks with his dog instead and witnessing the natural passage of time.

After a string of self-released albums and EPs, “Sun Arcs” is Dungan’s first album for the young Tonal Union imprint. The label was launched last year with the release of Akusmi’s strong “Fleeting Future” album that appeared on many year-end lists. Tonal Union is the brainchild of Adam Heron, a London-based designer and manager that has worked for Erased Tapes and Gondwana over the last decade. With his new label, he’s now bringing his own curatorial vision to life.

The second release on the label, “Sun Arcs” is a special album by a one-man band. Dungan employs percussion, drum machines, slide guitars, clarinets and self-built string instruments to weave a dense tapestry of experimental, instrumental folk-jazz. Some of it unsurprisingly recalls the work of Laaraji, other tracks remind me of Tortoise in their “TNT” phase, and others sound a bit like Steve Gunn’s calm guitar ambient. “Sun Arcs” succeeds in bringing these disparate elements together, creating a world that is distinctly Blue Lake’s own – somewhere between American minimalism and Swedish #cottagecore.

Dungan playing one of his self-built instruments

The instrumentation on a lot of these tracks – except for the two solo zither recordings – is rich and dense, just like summer in Sweden, “when the plants and insects are opening up everywhere, and there’s this almost too-intense feeling of life outside.” (Dungan in the press release)

Dungan chose his artist moniker as a reference to a live album by experimental trumpeter Don Cherry, recorded in 1971 and released in 1974, with Johnny Dyani on bass and Okay Temiz on drums. “Blue Lake”, the album, is the result of a group improvisation in Paris, playing mostly spiritual jazz interpretations of Abdullah Ibrahim compositions. It was recorded at the start of Cherry’s most fertile period, one year before he released the outstanding “Organic Music Society”. The LP starts with Cherry solo on a Native American flute for a five-minute intro, which is called “Blue Lake” as well. It’s a mesmerizing moment, to say the least.

Dungan references Cherry’s combination of folk and jazz elements, and also his “stripped back performance ethos” as inspirations for his own work. Like Cherry’s music, most of “Sun Arcs” is based on improvisation, usually on one of the zither- or cello-like instruments that Dungan built himself and tuned in unconventional ways. But unlike Cherry, Dungan doesn’t stop here – drones, strings, woodwinds, guitar and percussion are layered on top of each other, and in many cases organic drum machine beats are added, steadily “recording and reviewing, adding and subtracting” during the creation process.

While Cherry got into a dialogue with his fellow musicians on stage, Dungan turns inward. “Sun Arcs” revolves around nature cycles and seasons, but can also be viewed as a self-portrait of an American living in Europe, more specifically Scandinavia. What I love most about the album is how it creates an atmosphere of awareness, wonder and awe – taking cues from the grandmasters of vibe music: Mark Hollis and Philip Glass, Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry. “Sun Arcs” doesn’t fit into ambient-by-numbers templates or algorithm hack schemes. But spend some time with it, and it becomes a rewarding listen that you can come back to over and over again and feel right at home in its beauty and bliss.

Summer playlist

More summer soundtracks: Zen Sounds: Balearic Beat evolved from a personal playlist I’ve been compiling over many years. It has grown into a massive pool of currently 350+ tracks and a playtime of almost 30 hours. It’s not sequenced at all, so I definitely recommend listening to it on shuffle.

In the spirit of early DJ Alfredo sets, this playlist contains music from very different genres – spanning from house, disco, soul and pop to ambient, electronic music, and downtempo. It’s not a party playlist, even though many songs are danceable. It’s not a chillout playlist, even though many tracks do have that sundown-at-Café del Mar-type vibe. It’s a playlist to soundtrack your summer days, inducing a general sense of calm and relaxation. It’s been tested on the dusty roads of Mallorca’s Tramuntana mountains for years!

One more thing (actually, two)

I want to leave you with a Brian Eno speech from 2015 explaining why creative minds should never try to get a real job, and an outtake from the great independent movie “Slacker” (1990) with the late Charles Gunning as “the hitchhiker” dropping the famous line: “To all you workers out there, every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death.”

To be clear, I have nothing against work – in fact, I like my current work a lot – but I’ve also realized over the years that making the widespread societal definition of success a precondition for my happiness won’t work for me. So instead of chasing financial rewards, peer recognition and career advancement, I’ve been striving to live life more intensely. Summer’s here! And before you know it, it will be gone. Don’t let life pass you by.

I’ll be back soon.

Happy weekend!