I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DUNGEN-Häxan (2016).

I have been to a lot of shows in the last couple of years.  I have also had tickets to a few that I had to miss for various reasons.  The one I regret missing the most was the Dungen show where they were going to play live for the film The Adventures of Prince Achmed.   I missed it because there was pretty heavy snow–it was the right choice, I am just bummed about it.  It’s not so much that I wanted to see them perform the music that’s in this album (I didn’t even know it at the time), it’s just the experience that sounded awesome (and the fact that they played a second set of their other songs afterward was icing).

So this soundtrack officially came out recently.  It’s about 40 minutes (the film is around an hour) and it is a largely fun Dungen release with a feeling of soundtrack invoked.

The disc opens with “Peri Banu vid sjön,” the perfect soundtrack–slow and loping with washes of sound.  “Jakten genom skogen” follows with slow washes of sound with a pretty acoustic guitar melody and some lively bass.  It slowly builds in a kind of rocking 70s way.  “Wak-Wak’s portar” is a fast loud riotous affair that lasts a minute and a half.   It traipses back and forth on headphones and even has a penny whistle solo. It is sort of forcibly segued into “Den Fattige Aladdin,” a rather muffled distant sounding flute melody (I’m guessing it’s Aladdin’s motif).

“Trollkarlen och fågeldräkten” is a jazzy number with bass and piano and soaring wild guitar over the top of it.  “Grottan” is a minute of spooky synths that segues into the noisy buzzy guitar workout of “Häxan.”  That rocking slows to a slow menacing thump of drum and piano.

“Aladdin’s flykt över havet” is a soaring minute of synths which is followed by the sparing uplifting synths of “Kalifen.”

“Achmed flyger: is a fast piano based piece about Achmed flying, I assume.  Then there’s two Aladdin pieces: “Aladdin och lampan, del 1” is a slow one minute piano piece “del 2” returns to that flute motif with a groovy guitar and bass behind it.  The melody gets shunted to the distance as “Achmed och Peri Banu”  takes over with its drums and somewhat menacing bass.

The final song “Andarnas Krig” is nearly seven minutes long.  It is classic Dungen: wailing guitar solos with feebdack ala Hendrx’ “Star Spangled Banner.”  There’s some great rollicking bass work and rocking drums and everything.

Although this isn’t as substantial as some of their other albums, it’s a great collection of psychedelic instrumentals and you can imagine a movie streaming behind it.

[READ: April 18, 2017] Birthright: Volume Four

So much happens in this book that it’s like having whiplash–in the best way possible.

We open with Wendy and Rya in Mastema’s dining room.  Wendy is pleased to be lavished, but Rya says not to forget that they are in fact her prisoners–no matter how nice the accommodations.  While they are there, the other three mages arrive and discuss what should be done about this whole Mikey thing.

Speaking of the Mikey thing, we cut to the men of Mikey’s family: Mikey, his brother Brennan, his father Aaron and his grandfather–Sameal.  They head towards Sameal’s “lair” which is a  warehouse with extra security “magic doesn’t protect everything.”  This time-out allows everyone to deal with each other.  Aaron get t o confront his father–the father who was never there for him, who left when he was little and was the reason the Aaron acted the way he did with his own kids.

While there, Enoch, one of the other mages, comes to confront Sameal and we learn what their whole deal was. Enoch says that in all of their time together Sameal never told him that he had a family on earth (whereas Enoch told Sameal everything).  Enoch is offended that he didn’t share this intimate detail, but is more upset because he wants to know what Sameal was hiding all this time.  And the crux here is that Enoch says that Sameal’s own family is irrelevant if he can save the world–killing his grandson could save the world!

Then we see how the five mages made the plan to leave Terrenos.  They conclude that every time they fight King Lore, they destroy another part of Terrenos–a by-product of the battle. And destruction is just what Lore wants anyway.  Sameal suggests that maybe they should just leave.  There is much debate but ultimately they decide to travel to Earth and lock the portal.  This will essentially trap Terrenos with Lore.  Was it cowardly or clever?  And the only reason they had consensus was because Enoch agreed with his close friend Sameal–they had been through so much together that their bond was unbreakable.

Meanwhile, we see Brennan accepting some of the powers that seem to be his own birthright–his grandfather said that he had the healing spirit within him.  Aaron tells Brennan not to listen to Sameal–that he has always been a liar.  But Brennan tells his father to stop undermining him–something he accuses his father of doing all of his life.  And soon enough he is using his magic to heal Mikey.  But his magic is weak and all it does is make the Nevermind wake up and begin to fight.  The question is whether or not he can control his magic enough to cope with the Nevermind without killing his brother.

By the end of the book,  Mikey has been kidnapped, a dragon has been let loose on earth and another Mage is dead.  That leaves 3 and each dead Mage weakens the lock on the portal between worlds.

Oh and what about Wendy Rya and Mastemsas?  Well, they get the most important part of the story.  Turns out that if Rya gives birth to Mikey’s son while she’s on Earth it means that neither one of them will be able to go back to Terrenos (and she is pretty close to giving birth).  But more importantly, she tells Rya that the prophecy–the one that this whole story is based on, the one where Mikey saves Terrenos–doesn’t exactly mean what everyone thinks it means.  And how does she know?  Because she’s the one who told everyone about it…and she was lying.  She spread the lie ion order to give everyone hope in times of despair.  And then she lays out the biggest bombshell yet.

Book Five has recently come out and Book Six is due out in 2018.  Who can wait that long?