Lost And Sound

Blue Lake

• Paul Hanford • Episode 193

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Blue Lake is the music of American artist Jason Dungan, shaped by living on a Copenhagen island where wild parkland sits on reclaimed industrial ground and flight paths cross the sky. We sit down to explore how place, practice, and people turn Americana and ambient textures into something fused with a European sensibility. 

Jason shares the pivot from visual art to sound, and why Don Cherry’s spirit sits at the project’s core—not as a template but as a way of working that welcomes risk, collaboration, and porous borders. We unpack how chords feel different when five musicians make them together, how a rock club can unlock a set the concert hall couldn’t, and why the best parts of a record often come from the problems you refuse to outsource. Along the way, we talk recording in Sweden’s forests beside factories, treating albums like thoughtfully built exhibitions, and keeping the human pulse in music even as tools get slicker.

We also zoom out. Touring with a band in the UK, leaning on Scandinavian funding, and balancing freelance work all reveal the new economics artists navigate. Jason calls out AI’s promise to “solve” creative labour as missing the point—the friction is the point. And when politics intrudes, it’s real: living in Denmark means Greenland is neighbours, language, history, protest. Small-country confidence, built on community and cooperation, mirrors the values in Blue Lake’s sound.

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

Blue Lake on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/the_bluelake/?hl=en

Blue Lake on Bandcamp:

https://bluelake1.bandcamp.com/

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Paul:

Okay, so last week on the show it was Mid Lake. This week you're going to another lake. This is Blue Lake. They both come from Texas. They both have a connection in their music to Americana. But that's where I think the similarity kind of stops. Hello, you're listening to Lost and Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. But before we get going, Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. For over 60 years, this family-run company has been making the kind of gear that helps artists, DJs, and listeners alike really hear the detail. Headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Studio quality, beautifully engineered and designed and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audiotechnica.com to check out all of the range of stuff. All right, let's do the show. I'm Paul Hamford. I'm your host. I'm an author, broadcaster, and lecturer. And Lost and Sound is the podcast where each week I have a conversation with an artist who works outside the box about music, creativity, and about how they're navigating life through their art. So whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along. I'm speaking to you from a very snowy Berlin today. It's that kind of treacherous, trudgy, slippery, whoops, you might fall over kind of snow. I've had a couple of near falls already today. So yeah, there you go. Blue Lake is the guest on the show today, the musical project of American multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan. Blue Lake first emerged with his 2023 album Sun Arcs, released to all sorts of critical acclaim, including a pitchfork album of the year, and he's followed it up with a succession of releases and performances, culminating most recently with last year's rather fantastic album, The Animal, released on Tonal Union. So this is music that draws on Americana, on ambient music. It's instrumental, it's full of acoustic guitars, double bass, zivers, strings, and horns. And a particular inspiration in the music is Don Cherry, the American jazz multi-instrumentalist. Cherry actually released an album called Blue Lake, and listening to it, listening to Don Cherry's album, Blue Lake, and the music of Jason as Blue Lake, I do hear a connection in terms of like there being a sense of transcendence in the music, sort of drawing on space, both the inner space that is inside us and the external environment around us. But not like I think because it is kind of meditative music and and but it's not done in a way where the environment around or or what is inside is all about necessarily this kind of namaste calm, this kind of airbrushed dolphin kind of meditativeness. It's it sort of takes in the realities of the surroundings, and and it's really interesting what Jason has to say about what his surroundings are. And on that note, Jason is originally from Dallas, Texas, and he now resides on this island in Copenhagen. And I found it really interesting hearing the takes of being an American who makes what you'd loosely describe as a form of Americana, but with this European sensibility that's come from quite a long time now of living in Scandinavia, and then before that in the UK. On that note, I should point out that the conversation when we had it was January the 22nd last week. And that was the week. God, it feels like we're going in such a sort of overdrive with the news right now. But it was the week where Trump and his fascist regime were going apeshit over Greenland. And so the journalist in me sort of thought it was important to get Jason's opinion on this as an American living in Denmark at that time. But listening back, like the human in me hopes that he feels that I wasn't grilling him on this. He's a smart, progressive guy, and I know a lot of Americans are feeling a lot of heavy things right now. And he handled my inquiry with a lot of grace. Anyway, this is one of those really long, windy conversations that goes into all sorts of nooks and crannies. Um, I love listening back to, I loved it at the time, and I love listening back to the conversation just now as I'm putting it together for you. And yeah, so you're gonna hear it in a second. But yeah, if you like the show and you haven't already, please give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. It really, really, really does help. And so, yeah, this is me, Paul Hamford, talking with Jason Dungan. And we had this chat on January the 22nd, 2026. And yeah. How are you doing? Thanks so much for joining me this morning.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'm um my day-to-day right now is my wife's doing a uh an artist, she's an artist, so she's doing a residency in a different part of Denmark. We have two kids, so I'm doing a lot of the parental responsibility. And then uh in creative terms, I'm just starting to warm up to doing some touring in the UK in March and uh playing a couple shows in Denmark before that. So starting next week, I'm gonna start rehearsing uh for that and just getting things ready for doing some touring in the spring here.

Paul:

Awesome, awesome. So, where where are you right now? So you're um, I know you live on a little island in Copenhagen. Is this where I'm speaking to you from?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah. It is, yeah. We live in, yeah, we live in an eastern part of Copenhagen, which is called uh in it's an island called Ammar, but it's like uh it also that makes it sound slightly more like um like slightly more well it it is an island, it's a sort of interesting place because it's like it's where if you fly to Copenhagen, it's where the airport is. Um and then like it used to be like the very industrial, like eastern part of the city. Like if you see photographs of the island in the early 20th century, it was it was like there was like farmland and a lot of wooden buildings, and um, and then at the beginning of the 20th century, they started to build more neighborhoods. Um, but so a lot of this stuff in the island is from the kind of early 20th century, and then we live near it's this kind of big green space, which there was still a lot of industry up until the kind of 6070s along the water. So that was actually it was a big like dumping ground for a lot of the industry there. And then they threw a bunch of earth on it and just kind of left it, and it actually turned in it's turned into a very kind of beautiful semi-wild kind of park because it's essentially just been unused all this time. But yeah, but it's sort of like stuck in it's like connects to the the rest of Copenhagen, so it's not an island in the sense that you're like you don't have to take a boat to it or anything like that, but geographically it is an island, but um it's been kind of like stuck on to the city now.

Paul:

I see what you mean, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But it is kind of like it it's a lot there's a lot of musicians I know who live here. It's like partly it's just like a cheaper part of the city. And then also if I turn left when I come out my door, I can get to the center of town really fast. But if you go right and ride on your bike or drive for not that long, you can get out to kind of more wild or like like a bit of forest or some farmland and things. Like it's not that big, but it it has like different kinds of spaces than a lot of the rest of the city. So I think it's also attractive to people in that way.

Paul:

How long does it take you to get to the city center from uh ten minutes.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you you wouldn't if if you don't know, like if you look at a map, you can see that it's an island, but if you're just like walking around, you can't really sort of feel it that much because the part where the island and the mainland connect has been earthed over and paved over for a long time. But when you s but when you see it from the air, and like when you go out into it, like and it's because it's got this strip of like where there's just kind of a major neighborhood, and then you go along them, you know, that goes along the road and the motorway to the airport. So lots of parts of it just feel like an like a normal extension of the city. But if you go down to the southern part, there's like there's a couple places that used to be sort of like fishing villages that you feel kind of like you're in the countryside or something, even though you're it's that kind of also kind of weird thing about Scandinavia that it because this I mean it is the capital city and it has all the things that come with that, but it is just like I used to live in London and like just the scale of the city is just really different from a place like that. So you can be like where we are, you can feel like you're a bit far out, but actually like I had a I I organized a project where a a musician, kind of a composer from LA, came over here and he really wanted to walk around a lot. And we were just walking to all these places in Copenhagen, and it it only really took 30 or 40 minutes, and we could get to most of the places we wanted to go to just by walking. So you it it is just like on a slightly different whereas like in London, I would walk 40 minutes sometimes just to go to like yeah, a different part of Hackney or something.

Paul:

Oh, oh my god, yeah. When whenever I I go back to London, I have this sort of thing where I I like to do this nostalgic walk of my old neighborhood. And I usually start off like in London Fields, then I'll go, okay, I'm gonna walk to Brick Lane from here, that's just down the road, and about an hour later, I've it feels like about an hour 14 minutes later I'm still walking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because I had when we still lived there, our kids were quite small, so I was just walking around with them and they're like buggies or whatever all the time. And because I had kids, my my little my world kind of shrunk a lot to just mostly just being in Hackney a lot. Yeah, and that was quite nice, but I remember when I think back to it, I think, yeah, it was actually a pretty long trip to kind of walk from like Columbia Road up to Clapton or whatever. Like I mean, that's a part I like about Copenhagen. It's like I mean it kind of plays into the like even just that thing with the music scene, like you sort of see people around or you see people on the street, or like that that was one thing that kind of drew me to being here. Is like it just was a s I even before I really knew I didn't know that many people, but I was spending some time here because my wife's from here and I was going to see shows, and like even then I would I would start to notice there were people I would see at a lot of the same shows, and I know those people now because I just see them at like every show be like, who's that? That person must be a musician or doing something because like I see them at every show. And like I I was kind of drawn to that after those years of being in London that like for being a person, like for moving to a new city and stuff, it kind of meant that yeah, you could get around and see things, you could meet people. Like I've like we go back, like Britain is probably the place where I play the most frequently. Like we go there every year and play some shows, and I really love playing there because I think there's a great kind of music culture, and the places where you can play are really interesting. It's not always like the easiest place to play because of the transport and the economics and everything, but like culturally, I think it's a really great place to play. But like, even like I organized a couple years ago, three years ago, I organized a couple of shows in London for some like some different because I did a lot of like project space kind of stuff here. So I just came over as an organizer and organized a night Cafeoto, and then we organized a night at Black Tower projects in Sydenham. Um and they were really both like really great nights. And the kind of the cool thing about that, it's a bit like in LA where like those places are far enough apart that they don't actually compete with each other, even though they're like two nights in a row. But it's like you know, we almost sold out a cafeoto and a bunch of people came to the thing at Sydenham, but like trying to organize that and thinking like okay, where should everyone stay if one night is a Cafeoto and one night is Sydenham? Like just the logistics of like dealing with those two different places. And I just felt that when I lived there. Like I lived near Cafeota and I would go see shows at Cafeoto all the time. But then like you'd hear like, oh, somebody's doing this thing down in like southwest London or something like that. Yeah, in Packland. Like it was like it was it was so hard to like whereas like yeah, Copenhagen, it's like for a while there was a venue here named Alice, and they had these renovations going on in their building, so they had to move to like this venue they could get their hands on, but it was in kind of like you could take the metro to get there, but it was in kind of like the western end of the metro line. And it's like geographically like kind of far, and like I never go there otherwise, but like it was just like 25 minutes on the metro or something. So it you know, I would still go and see shows there. And for for being a musician like based here, I think that is a a positive like part of it. I think there's that thing that people can feel because it is a smaller city, like you know, I'm playing some shows here in like March, but you you kind of quite quickly like play all the places.

Paul:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like in February, I'm gonna play in Copenhagen and then Aarhus, which is like the second biggest city in Denmark, and then we're gonna play in uh Oldburg as well in March. But those are like maybe like the three main places to play.

Paul:

Where's I love what you were saying about London, like basically if you're playing somewhere like Otto, and then uh the next night you can play somewhere down south. And it is like I live in Berlin, and it would be the equivalent I'd see it of playing Berlin one night and Leipzig the next. That's the difference on different sides of London. It's um which kind of does make it quite a good city to play in because yeah, I remember when I lived there, like the idea of like going say south, it it was an excursion, really. It's it's crazy, it's just an hour, but it just feels like you're crossing through sort of several different like time zones.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think some cities get onto that scale. Yeah, like I was just I was over in New York working on some some music with some people, and I can also see there that they play, you know, they also play in lots of different projects, but like they play pretty regularly in New York because there's you know, you play an improv show in Queens and then you play in your other project at more of like a rock venue, you know, two weeks later in Brooklyn, and then I don't know, like the city's so big that it's like those things aren't competing in the same way at all. Yeah, it's a it's a different thing, yeah, for sure.

Paul:

Yeah, definitely. So I mean, was it um your wife like meet uh sort of is that a decision of moving to Copenhagen to the family?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we kind of uh I mean, people hear like a lot of people here joke about it because there's like it's definitely like a lot of people like people who go like if you want to study, even just people want to study art, for example, like a lot of Danish people if they if they don't because you know Denmark like it has a it has an art academy in Copenhagen and it has a couple others and around the country, but there's like not that many of them, and there's not that many spots if you want to study. And also some people I think just culturally, like they're kind of interested in and going away and studying somewhere else. So a lot of people study in the UK or in uh Germany or or in Holland. But then it's like it's pretty normal that people will come back to Denmark. I think there's this kind of a cultural longing for it, and I think particularly like when you have kids, like I think it's also that like even just a practical thing, like like my wife's an artist, and we had we had our second child, and like at that time I was making visual art more professionally and just making a I was making a lot of music and we were playing in a band together, and I was also you know teaching in an art school, but it was that it was that kind of question of like how do you you know, getting into your 30s, like how do you keep working in this way but still kind of survive financially and it just felt like not so easy to do in London, and then I think um yeah, so she yeah, long story short, yeah, she had a kind of like strong desire to come back, and I we'd been spending time here in the summers because we were both teaching, so we had summers free and we would rent out our place and kind of exist financially that way, and I was starting to go making this transition of just focusing on music and just doing that as like my main project, and then was getting quite inspired and excited by the scene here. Like there was this space here called Mayhem that at this time, like about it was like twelve years ago or something, where I was spending time here. At that point, mayhem was maybe like five years old, but I would go and see shows there and just it was like really interesting, just programmed by the people who were here and seeing these groups in Denmark who were people really like operating on this line between being like composers and performers and music that was like somewhere between more like contemporary composer music or like noise music or jazz, or it felt like really fresh to me, and I was quite excited about it. And like so that that was for me the thing that made me kind of want to take the plunge was like that the music seemed seemed exciting. But yeah, she was quite into it, and then um you know that was also a case for of me of like I was sort of reaching a point where I'd been working as an artist for a while and was kind of feeling like the as a way of working, I feel like I was just coming to the end of a chapter and was happy with the work that I'd made, but I'd also had a a lot of years where I'd been making music either in this band or I I I I had this kind of slightly strange thing of like I've been making a lot of solo music quite intensively for many years and hadn't really released it, but was like getting really into it. And that was actually particularly something with Scandinavia. Like we were staying up in this house in Sweden in the summers, and that's where I'd record a lot of solo music and was just increasingly finding that to be kind of exciting. So that was also moving here was also the occasion because it's such a kind of disruption or upheaval to move countries like that. I decided to sort of in a way like take advantage of it and kind of throw everything up in the air. And that was when I decided just to really focus on making music. Because also feeling like I didn't really know a lot of people here and felt kind of invisible, and I thought there was no sort of expectation from anyone because no one knew who I was. For me, it was like an ideal opportunity to kind of reinvent what I was doing. And that's when I kind of started also building instruments and and something just kind of clicked in my head where I think I was could just also feel in a basic way I was a bit happier making music. And I felt like that world was something I I felt like I could operate in. And that's I started like organizing concerts too, it's just a way of like meeting people, and and I think I was just feeling a bit more at home in the music world as well. So I kind of just kind of took that and ran with it.

Paul:

It's really interesting hearing you sort of say how this sort of genesis came together. Um, and I love the title Blue Lake, and there's something very visual about that. Um and and you know, you you mentioned, I just heard you mention that you were kind of working more as a visual artist beforehand. Um like what what for you, like what were you drawing? I know there's the uh Don Cherry track that maybe we'll get on to, but what were you drawing on with that title? Because it does feel very sort of like I I might I need another coffee to make sure I've got the right word, but is it omnomatopoeia where like a word sounds no that's what a word that's back the same backwards as forwards, but what's the word that sounds like what it is?

Speaker 1:

No, I think that's an that's onomatopoeia. That's like um like in those Batman TV shows like POW or whatever. Yeah, that's right. And it would be like pow.

Paul:

Pow.

Speaker 1:

That was definitely a thing for me that like especially because for so many years, like I was making films and I was making drawings, and then like making music was kind of like it was almost like my kind of like hollow, it was like my kind of like dessert or something. Like I felt like if I had to make Extra time for myself, like, okay, I'm gonna make some music. Because I like I enjoyed making it so much that I was like, yeah, it was almost an aware. I felt like I had this like professional role as a visual artist. And then making music was like my fun. And then it was, I was like at a certain point realizing, like, I've been doing this for like years, like maybe this actually is the thing you want to be doing. But I kind of also really appreciate now that I had so many years where I was making it without in a in a real way trying to like frame it or present it to the world. And it was more just this like because I never studied music. So like all those years of making it was my kind of form of study in a way. But I think it also was very influenced by that time of being a visual artist. Like it also meant when I played in this band called Squares and Triangles, which was these other visual artists that I know, we were often playing not in like music clubs, but like playing a lot in like art galleries, or like sometimes one of us would do an exhibition and then play a concert in the exhibition. And because we were all visual artists, like people would also come with like I one of the people in the band is an artist named Dustin Erickson, and he would like come in with like you know, unusual objects or instruments, or like it was like being in the mix of that band was also what inspired me to start. I started casting metal and and cutting up pieces of wood to make percussion, and then I started building string instruments, and even that thing of like making records for me it was less like thinking about like the music world or music business to make records. And for me, like the record was in a way like how I would think about exhibitions before or something where you think about the titles, you think about what it looks like, you kind of think about as an artist, I think, because you're often working in these, you know, you might be working in a commercial gallery and hanging physical artworks on the wall, but I've also done exhibitions where you know we did performances or did non-material things or made a text, or you end up working in a lot of these kind of like different situations. So you think a lot about the context and the reception and and in a way with making music, I kind of wanted to flip that because I was kind of excited then about the directness of a record that like I can make this record and put it in somebody's hand and they can just listen to it because they want to listen to it. But I think it still was informed, yeah, by those things of like and even giving the project that title, Blue Lake was like at that time I I had that for a few years before I was really releasing the records, but I wanted to have like a kind of just for myself, like a kind of idea for what it was. And and I think it was around that time, you know, I was making that solo music, particularly up in Sweden, and in in the most direct kind of literal way, like a lot of the activities that involved going down to this lake and swimming in the lake. And like so it kind of it was a way of like name-checking the place, but then also name-checking like for me this this kind of importance of Don Cherry's music. I think his music really helped me to understand the way that I could draw together these different strands of my interest in a way that was quite personal and quite direct. And like it for me, it was also kind of an escape hatch from the art world, which I don't think has to be this way, but for me, I think I had been approaching things maybe a slightly more like like approaching things maybe in a slightly more ideas-based kind of way. And and at a certain point realized that I kind of wanted to kind of get out of that and approach something that was much more direct and like had a lot more to do with just like a direct experience and like people, you know, emotions and like just thinking about in the most basic way, like what do I really feel? What do I kind of love? Like, what's the most like pleasurable thing I can think? Like, I was kind of trying to like get back to basics in a way, and I think his music was really it was a way of like when I listened to his music, I could understand all those things almost without even having to put words to it, but it was like a feeling I got from his music. So it wasn't even that I was trying to like I mean, I'm sure he has an influence on what I do a lot, but in less like a direct kind of influence of sound, it was more just like there's an approach, like the that 70s music, like the way that he approaches working and making things. I just had a kind of aha moment with his approach, which made me feel like I wanted to include it in the sort of DNA of the project because I it was so important to me. Like I kind of saw him almost as like a teacher or something in a way of just like I was listening to those records really intently and watching like YouTube film of him playing live and just thinking a lot about how he approached things. And um, I really liked that that the name would like evoke something. Like for me, it would evoke that place. And because also sometimes like there's an important thing to me, like when I'm up in that place in Sweden, like we go down to that lake, but then there's like a few small factories in the little town where we are, and some parts of the forest are basically like harvested by the farmers, you know, to make money, and so they're kind of replant them. Like it's not some sort of like utopian nature perfect space that's like I think also sometimes it creates I can feel sometimes like with the distance, like people have like I can feel sometimes there's like a way of framing, particularly that record that I mostly made up in Sweden, that like where it's almost this kind of like uh picturesque thing of me like playing the zither under a waterfall or something where it's like it's not actually like you're kind of like quite aware of like industry and stuff out there too, which is also kind of important to me that like it's sort of connecting with an aspect of nature, but it's an like because all of Sweden is like most of Sweden is this kind of there's a lot of forest and things like that, but in a lot of subtle ways, it's very connected to Sweden as a modern European country with industry, and like sometimes like once you once you're you know, the the level of the lake, for example, rises due to the needs of the hydroelectric uh power and things like so it's like I don't know, you're you're always like in this like larger conversation with the larger world as well. Yeah, that's maybe like another story, but that was kind of important to me too. And like I feel like Don Cherry's music is like that. Like he's you know, he's searching for these kind of you know, connections with people and playing in different countries and you know, playing with skilled musicians and naive or like untrained musicians, and but you know, he's also like living in the East Village in New York and in the 70s and kind of dealing with all the kind of more harsh realities of what that means. And like he was a person also of like these different places, and I guess maybe also it's about like music is a place where you're searching for this like perhaps like temporary transcendence or temporary connection to things, and then you kind of return back to the world. But like that connection that that that process is like important to me, I guess.

Paul:

I that's just a really uh picking up on what you're saying though, like because there is something quite, I guess, like sort of transcendent about your music. There's something in a way that could be seen as being quite calm, quite contemplative, but like the way that you're saying and connecting with Don Cherry, grounding it in like maybe that it is within the context of like various socioeconomic factors, various realities. It isn't this sort of perfect waterfall dolphin type scenario, or medieval or whatever, whatever you want to draw on for sort of like iconic stuff. And I think that's a really interesting sort of human response to make music that sort of deals with the environment, or at least partly like it is sort of embedded in the environment, but doesn't speak. But you know, like the response is a very human way, I guess. Sometimes I think when we create art of making something for ourselves that is a communication with other people, but is rooted in uh like also going through the processes of what we're experiencing ourselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I think so. Like I think I think also like for my a lot of my life, like also lot, especially when I was like, I mean, it still is, but like when I was young, like live music was really important to me. I think I just inst I just didn't like I had like a really strong reaction to it when I first saw live music. And then when I was a teenager and started kind of seeing, you know, like my own music or whatever. Like my parents took me to concerts when I was really little because they liked seeing live things, but you know, growing up in Dallas, like I remember I it felt very like culturally like when you walk around on the street, like I was starting to get into like more underground kind of culture or music, but like walking around in the street in Dallas, like none of that stuff was ever very visible. It was a very like bland kind of surface that you were kind of accessing in Dallas. So like when I would go and see you know some shows there, like when I was like 14, I went to this like concert with my friend in downtown Dallas, and it was at this kind of uh wrestling arena that was kind of falling down, and they would used to book a lot of shows there, but like we saw like the Beastie Boys in Cypress Hill and uh Ruther Rollins band play there, and it was like this totally exciting thing is like in that live space, it was like this kind of you were suddenly thrust into this like different world from like the normal experience of being in Dallas, or like that same friend, like I didn't go to this show, but my that same friend went and saw the butthole surfers, and like he was talking about how crazy it was, and like it was this kind of like window into like you know, in that thing, like even when I was older, like when I was I was living in London and I was studying there after I'd moved away, like I'd sort of moved around a bit and went back to the US and went to college there, and then I moved to London. And this was about a year after September 11th, so it was you know, it was kind of like an intense moment, and you know, at that point also like I wasn't making music. Like I'd been making music a lot in Vermont, and then I moved to London and I didn't really have I just had like a room I was living in, and I didn't really know where to like make stuff, and I didn't really know anyone at that point who was making music, so I was like, I don't really know, am I gonna make music? And I remember I went and saw Fugazi, and um that that time of like being in that concert was like you were having this kind of transcendent experience, but it also stayed with you. Like my this thing I felt coming out of it was that like okay, I have to keep making music. It was this like feeling that I had, and that's like kind of my feeling about music, is like I think sometimes also people I don't know, yeah, it doesn't like sort of permanently change everything around you, obviously, but like having those deep experiences or like I think it was like a thing I really came into contact with in Britain, it's like a lot of people like it's just much more of like a club like or like rave culture, which like for Americans like wasn't so normal, but like so a lot of people I knew who are really into music in Britain or people who had actually been to like went to a lot of like reggae, you know, nights or had been to like raves and stuff, but it was like those kind of things also had like a really big impact on society. Like people would go and go to raves and like experience music in that way and this like collective thing, it would change a lot of their lives like outside of that like specific moment. And I feel like also that's like really important to me. Like, even like in the the like some of the like the first couple blue leg records, that was sort of I was putting them together like post you know the first Trump election and having a lot of heavy feelings about that. And then in the building I was living in, at the time, like there was a lot of like difficulties like in that building in Copenhagen or in Denmark, you have to like often like collectively make a lot of decisions in the building where you live. And there was a kind of like semi-psychopathic kind of person living in that building who was not there's always one, isn't there? Yeah, always and then this was like a particularly bad one and not so dissimilar in personality type to to Trump, I think, in a way. And so it was kind of a heavy vibe, and I was like, I really liked where we lived. I was like, maybe we have to move, and like we ended up moving, and but it was like one thing I realized was like if I would go and play guitar, I wouldn't like dwell on this situation. So I started playing guitar like even more. And that was actually when I started developing a lot of I was building the zithers and I was starting to develop and like for me, a new way of approaching the guitar, kind of out of working on the zithers. And I kind of almost like doubled down on making music at that time, also because it was like a place where I could kind of get my head straight and not feel like weighed down by these things. And that to me was like a very real thing and a very important thing. And it wasn't like I didn't see it as like ignoring reality or ignoring those hard things in the world, but it was also kind of giving you like a space to kind of access another part of yourself, or like I feel like that playing music with other people is like it's extremely like I still really love that feeling of playing music with other people and playing live. And it I find it like really fills me up in terms of the kind of spirit you need to kind of go through life and deal with all those things, and like they're not at odds with each other. Um, but that's what I also feel like, you know, there there are these elements in my music that there are moments that I think, you know, I am interested in a certain kind of creating elements that can kind of come together, or I don't know, like certain elements of kind of beauty. But to me, it's not I don't see it as a kind of passive or untroubled thing. It's like you know, looking out. I've I've used this metaphor before, but like it's like if you look out over the you know, a beautiful sunset over the ocean now can be beautiful, but it can also make you think about like, oh, what's going on with like the ice caps that are melting? Or like yeah, yeah. You know, I live in a every city in Denmark is like a harbor city, essentially. So you're like, you know, it's like but like you can have like both thoughts.

Paul:

Like uh you can. You can you can see like the ocean, you can see the horizon, but you're also aware that there's like uh plastic bags that have like killed loads of fish under the under the surface.

Speaker 1:

And I'm I'm sort of but my mind sort of works that I'm kind of I'm very aware of those things and also aware that it is, you know, it is beautiful to go swimming in the ocean. And like, you know what, you also have to hold on to that feeling of beauty because that kind of gives you the the inspiration to actually like want to, you know, doing something politically also involves like my my wife's involved in activism to try to save some of this natural area around us because they're they're looking to build on it or they are building on it, but it it looks like it's not very safe to build there because of this toxic waste that's under the ground, and there's a lot of animals that use it as nesting and stuff. And she's been fighting as an activist for a number of years about that, but you know, part of getting the energy to do that is like she goes out to that space too and like loves being there, and those two things go like hand in hand, I think. And like I don't think you can do one if you don't have the other, like uh it becomes hard to kind of fill up one's energies, yeah, without that. So I I don't know. Yeah, but I'm I'm interested in that in the music that like you know, when I'm playing live with people, like on this last record I made, like it was definitely like I was coming in with compositions, but they were developed a lot more with the band than I'd done before. And you know, that was also partly having some ideas that you know, even in a track, like maybe there's like a chord that I want us all to play together. And even apart from any kind of technical things, like I was interested for this record of like that feeling of like five people making that chord together rather than you know what it would sound like if I layered five instruments to make a chord. Like, you know, perhaps both things could kind of be interesting musically, but at this moment I was kind of interested in like the feeling of that chord being generated in the room by the five of us, and that was like a feeling I was kind of after.

Paul:

Yeah, sometimes you want to um sometimes you want to write, say like if it's like words, I see it is like sometimes you want to you have something to say that you want to write yourself, and other times you want to have a conversation with people and build on an idea, don't you? I'm I'm I love what you there's a couple of things I just wanted to pick up on there. Like firstly, the element of practice. Like I was speaking with a guest last year, Eli Kesler, and he he was talking about like how he, you know, we were sort of in a way, we were sort of doom prophesizing about like AI and its effects on the music industry and its effects on being able to make a living as a as an artist. But he was sort of like trying to find a silver cloud in what he was saying, and he was talking about how if if like that it becomes impossible to make a living as an artist, and let's hopefully let's God, let's whatever, whatever deity make that not happen. Um the the the idea of making music could he sort of felt could become more connected to just because we we do we're gonna do it. We're gonna like, you know, people are gonna make music as much as people are gonna like sort of scribble on a desk or or like you know, hum. Um it's that it become it root itself more back into personal and kind of collective practice rather than commerce or product or or sort of being aligned with anything industry related because there wouldn't be an industry to connect it to that that um that isn't at least dealing in spot. And I mean that's very sort of like doom prophesizing, but the sort of I guess the silver lining that kind that I kind of what you were saying kind of connected with me about was like this idea of like if if music becomes this thing, or more people kind of enter this idea of music as being sort of like a practice, like you're saying, of um like you know, like an alter like an alternative or a companion to another practice that you might do, like journaling or or like sort of singing in a church choir or meditation or or or or like a sport. You know, then there is this sort of um yeah, like a it's like you the release from the world, but you also have the sort of like beauty of making something beautiful for other people as well, I guess.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I think there's a lot of things in there that like I mean, I have a lot of connections to that because I had I made music for so many years without without really an idea like for for whatever reason, like it was so natural to me to make music. Like when I was a teenager, I started recording lots of music, and I didn't really know anyone at this this place where I where I went to school that I didn't really know anyone who wanted to like have a band or whatever. So I just got super into recording. And in a funny way, wasn't even thinking like, oh, I should send like a demo tape to like merge records or something. I was kind of just like I was going to shows and I was like making like tons of stuff at home. And then I went to college and I started playing in bands with people. And yeah, in a funny way, like I think I just recognized from an early point, like it was kind of necessary for me to make it. Like I sort of had to make like I think it's what I realized. And that there's a couple of times when in my 20s when for whatever reason I wasn't really making music, and after like not very long, I kind of realized that I was almost like it was almost making me sort of feel bad. Like I sort of had to make it. And I think there's a lot of people who like have that where they're just like, I have to make. And it could be like whatever, like it's people who are doing like radio head covers on acoustic guitar on YouTube, or people who are like making their own techno. I think I realized as the years go by, like those are a lot of those things I kind of get into, like across from any sort of particular sound or like genre or whatever. Like I kind of like I've I've last few years, like I've really been getting into Larry Heard's music. And like he just sounds to me like someone who just like I can just imagine him spending hours on end in a studio with his like sampler and his drum machine, and he's just like making, you know, he's just like making one more track, and like the music's so beautiful, but I feel like he's just someone. I mean, I don't I don't know, but like yeah, he seems strikes me as someone who just like has that feeling of like I just have to make music. And I yeah, so like I feel now it's been interesting to kind of what I feel sort of happy about is because I had so many years doing that. Like now that I am trying to like, okay, I'm booking a tour, like how much money is that? I want to play with some people, how much figuring out how to make things work financially, and like but even like I still, you know, I still main, you know, I I have made a like a bit more money from doing music in the last couple years, and like, but I've maintained like I do a lot of freelance work at museums and things because I I also want to kind of for myself personally want to keep things on a kind of even keel. Like it is really great when there is some income coming from the music because that helps me free up space where I don't have to work like all the time and I can feel like I have space to record or pay for some studio time or like to tour and things like that. But I'm personally quite comfortable with keeping it on this kind of space where I'm not trying to get the music to be wholly you know my main income, even though like that is like attractive on some level, but it maybe also puts you on the spot to make some kind of decisions about the music, which like could could be difficult. Or I don't mean my my main ambition was to kind of I was always just really obsessed with being able to make records and kind of documenting that music and get it out there to you know a certain amount of people who would be up for those records and like to be in a position, you know, I'm working with a label that I think is quite supportive and quite good at getting the records out there and like that for me is like a lot of my excitement is to be able to make records that can kind of circulate on some level. But yeah, I think that you know what you were saying with that conversation with Eli that yeah, like in a way I feel slight I feel so weird about some of those media conversations right now where people are trying to talk about this idea of AI music and Like there was that uh the CEO for that is a company. I can't remember what it's called, it doesn't matter, but it's like it's a company where you can like you can like bust out a a song like really fast with like a few prompts.

Paul:

And I can call it like something like sumo or sumo or something like that, or one of those.

Speaker 1:

And I do just kind of think like it is just this strange thing to me. It's like what who what are we trying to solve there? Like what problem are we trying to solve? Like who is that for? Like, but I guess it's it's trying to make music like this kind of interactive thing so people can like and I can imagine like a lot of things, like maybe there being this kind of burst of like where people think that that's kind of funny or cool that they can do that, but it's like I still go back to that, like uh you know, a teenager doing radio head covers on their guitar. Like people are like drawn to music a lot in terms of like who makes it and how they make it. And like even that thing of that CEO guy, he was also saying, like, oh, there's a lot of grunt work in making music, and I'm sure artists are gonna love to use these tools because they can like solve their problems really quickly. And like in my experience, like the problems you encounter making music are where that's like where all the best ideas have come from for me when a when a piece of when a piece is sort of halfway done and I'm like, this is kind of this is going somewhere, I can feel it, but it kind of needs something else. And sometimes I kind of leave it for a little while and come back, and then it's like I realize, oh, I need to take out like this one element and like radically rework it. And then like that's the moment where it kind of clicks and it becomes this thing that I'm really excited about. And like that's just like the most for me is like the most obvious example of where those kind of technological things are sort of totally pointless because that that that engine would have come up with some sort of solution which would just like make it sound like some other exactly it's like that already exists, where it's like I and like all the people I know who make things, we're we're we're trying to find that moment where you're trying to m, you know, take yourself to some place where you haven't quite been before. And that's exactly not what those things do. It's like, but yeah, if you're making like some sort of wallpaper music like playlist kind of fodder and you're you're just making like 20 different like chill out tracks or whatever, and like yeah, mate like for those people, like they're already kind of making algorithm music. Like I feel a bit like that with some of you know, there's some films or TV that people make for streaming that it's like is already so algorithmic that it's like, does it really matter for those things if it's slightly quasi-ai produced or made like in a way like not because it's so like formulaic already? But like that's like not I don't but I'm I'm not interested in those things, obviously. Like, I mean you know, I don't watch those things, I don't listen to those things. Like and it's exactly like you know, those those Don Cherry records that blow me away so much. It's like him on like you know, pocket trumpet voice and piano with a bass player and a drummer playing live. Like that record that I love, that blue leg record, it like it's an incredible record. It's so beautiful. It's full of tons of like I don't know, like to contemporary years. There's like tons of like what people would call now, like mistakes or whatever, where they like yeah, there's like a note that's like out of whatever, like in the wrong place. But like that's like the beauty of that record is like you're hearing like three people, it's it's like teleporting you to being in that room and hearing those three people make that music, and it's like such like stunning music. It's just like a not it's like a non-issue. It's like you can't even, there's like nothing to even talk about in relation to that record with some sort of digital tool which would like smooth it over or something. It's like meaningless. It's like, what are you talking about? Like it doesn't, yeah, like there's nothing to say. Like it's not it's like missing the point, like I think of what you know, of what music is, and like most of the music that people really respond to obviously like wasn't made that way. So it's like, yeah, I don't know. That's like maybe like a whole other conversation.

Paul:

But I I love what you're saying, and I I think like I I imagine most people listening feel exactly the same. I feel tech CEOs are are not the people that should be sort of making decisions over the creative process. You know, it's not something that you can turn into a series of charts or uh or graphs. But I think the other the other thing I wanted to pick up on there, like there's something you said earlier on on, and and I'm I am happy to cut this out if it's something that makes you feel uncomfortable, is uh you mentioned about after 9-11, um, you know, digging into music sort of like uh you know became like a bit of a surge. And um what is going on in the last couple of weeks in terms of like Trump and Greenland and you being an American in Copenhagen right now? Um I was wondering if that has kind of led to some I wonder how you feel about that. I don't expect you to sort of be like the representative of of America in Scananabit, but just as as a as a human being, like how um how does it feel on the ground there right now? And does it feel like, you know, I mean, I'm not expecting you to say either like you know, glippy, like, oh yeah, like you know, it's inspired me to make 10 albums this week. But um, you know, like I mean, what what what is your take on that, you know, uh from your experience?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it's I mean, it's like obviously it's like a big um, it's been weighing on everybody everybody a lot. And in a way, I think it's almost like a thing that Danish people are like uniquely aware of, is like, and it's coming through a bit more now, but like when people talk about Greenland, like a lot of times it just keeps getting talked about as this like strategic thing. Whereas like, you know, uh Greenlanders have Danish passports, so like there's a lot of Greenlandic people living in Denmark, obviously. And I've had a lot of neighbors who have like one parent just from Greenland, and you know, there's Danish people who go live and work there, and so like for Danish people, it's like a real place with a society and a culture and like all these kind of things. And I just went to the protest here at the American embassy last weekend, and you know, some of the speeches were partly in you know Greenlandic, and people were uh singing Greenlandic songs. And so I think a thing that I appreciate about being here is like one thing I like love about being here as an American is like I mean, America is still like really addicted to this idea. I mean, I think Britain has also suffered from this to an extent of like this thing of like feeling good about yourself and your society comes from feeling like you're the biggest or the most powerful thing. And like I've always like really like just as like a on like a philosophical level, I think it's like so destructive to like have your self-image be built up and being like the biggest, most powerful thing. Like it does, it's just really bad to think of yourself that way. And also actually in a in a funny way makes you very vulnerable because if anything, you know, like the war in Vietnam was like this very good example of like America had such a sense of its self-image as being this like powerful like war machine or whatever, and it's it's like failure to dominate with its military in Southeast Asia and actually to lose and create an even worse kind of situation than when it came. It was very wounding to like the American psyche to sort of lose a war, but also in this way which I always find very disturbing, which is people didn't think very much about the kind of consequences for people in Southeast Asia, for example. So I think being here, and one thing I like about being in Denmark is like Denmark is kind of comfortable and confident with itself as a small country. It's not trying to pretend that it's something that it isn't, like it sees that as an advantage because if you're a small country, you have to collaborate and work with other people, and not at all to say that Denmark is some sort of like you know, perfect place or utopian place. And in an interesting way, in the last the time I've been living here in the last 10 years, like there's been a lot of internal dialogue about Denmark's history in Greenland. And you know, there's a lot of like dark elements of that and you know, things that people aren't very like are justly kind of you know very upset about. And and in a funny way, like I think Greenland has been sort of trending towards independence because I think they would quite like to be more independent, but actually one of the reasons they've hesitated to do that is because they're afraid that they would be vulnerable to the United States, actually. And so the reason they're still holding on to this this kind of relationship they have with Denmark is because you know, Denmark is the only real power that you know, at least in part, uh at least in there's factions that are looking out for the well-being of people in Greenland and thinking about those people. Um, so you know, it's been interesting to be here. I mean, I've never really been in a place where there was like a hot, hot issue like this, where there's almost universal support for one position, like in this in our era where we're so used to things being really polarized and being kind of 50-50 all the time. Like in Denmark, I I don't know what you know if you poll it or whatever, but it's like it's it's close, it's close to 100%, like in terms of people like thinking this is bad. And in a funny way, I think people really love American culture here. Like in in in Denmark, people really love jazz music a lot still, and um, you know, just a lot of like American culture. A lot of people have studied there or worked there. Like, I think people quite like going to America. You know, America's so like crazy and messy and kind of is a very different kind of culture than Denmark. So I think people have a lot of affection for it, but at the same time, people are very clear-minded about the current government and what they're doing, and so people are just kind of angry about it. And uh I think in a funny way, like people are feeling you know, because it's an issue where the the Denmark is not going to sort of compromise, like there's no I think Trump is used to picking fights where he thinks that he can like twist some kind of vulnerability and get what he wants. Like on trade or something, even if it's a fake thing that he's presenting as a win, but like Denmark is not going to sell you know Greenland or whatever. So it in a in a funny way, I think he it seems actually this morning even that he's kind of he's gonna find some kind of bogus way of saying he's won some kind of concession, but I think there's nothing that he can sort of get out of that. So in a funny way, it's like I'm kind of I've been kind of energized by it in a way because it's also this feeling of like, I think for you know, Denmark and people in northern Europe who've been so upset about what's been going on these last few years, like this is kind of a line in the sand to sort of stand up to things a bit more and say no. But yeah, I I mean nobody's like mean to me because I'm American or something. Like it's not like you know, I don't think people know yeah. I think also like I'm very embedded here. Like my kids are very Danish and I speak Danish and like I feel very culturally American still in a lot of ways, but also I've been living here for 10 years and feel very much like a part of the society here, and I think it just kind of underscores like those things that like yeah, that sense of like community, like it's a thing I had listening to Fugazi as a teenager. Like, that was always that culture. It was like we're never, you know, uh punk culture, like it's never gonna be like the biggest thing, this kind of DIY self-organized culture, experimental music culture, jazz culture, like it's never gonna be like the big thing or the mainstream thing or the thing with the most money, but like it is a real culture and it exists. And if we organize ourselves, like there is a strength and like a power that comes from that. Yeah, and sometimes that also involves like finding you know ways to exist within the kind of cracks of the mainstream as it offers to you. And I think, like you're saying before, it's like you know, we are clearly in a new era with a lot of things. Like we're in an era where America is kind of having a nervous breakdown, you know, internationally politically. We're in an era where like I'm just thinking now, like when I was in college in like the late 90s, early 2000s, I booked bands in Vermont. And I was thinking now about how much money I gave them because we just had our little college budget to book bands, and oftentimes people would call the radio station office on the on the like landline phone and say, Hey, we're playing around. Can we come play there? And I'd be like, Oh yeah. And I would give them like $500 or something in a place to stay. So it's probably $500 then is probably more like $1,000 now. And then, like, but I'm thinking people's rents then were a lot cheaper, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it was like even at the time, because at the time I was thinking, like, that's not that much money. It's like a five-person band. I'm giving them $500. But then I was thinking, oh, they're playing maybe like 10 or 15 shows, and like it kind of works out. Like, I don't know, I'm thinking now like those same kind of tours, like, you know, this spring I'm doing a mix of like from solo to duo to kind of full band shows, and like, you know, there's this kind of economics now that everyone's aware of and talking about, but like, you know, some of these I'm doing some like European festivals where there's like a different kind, there's like funding, so it's like you get a different kind of fee. We're doing like band shows in the UK because I kind of wanted to play the music that way. Um, they're really hard to make money off those shows. Like, even, you know, we had some that were pretty well attended, and so you, you know, but like the money is just coming through ticket sales, and you know, I'm applying to some funding here in Denmark to see if that can help. And um it just is like a little bit of a new reality, I think. Like I haven't really been touring in this way before the last, you know, it's only the last two or three years that I've been touring this project, and so I'm it's all for other people that'll be very used to it, it's still a bit new for me. And like, you know, I've been going through this thing of like, I really want to present the music with you know a band when I can because I think that really gives like the full scope of the music. But I'm you know, in some cases, I'm also kind of bowing just some of the economic realities and like you know, and I like playing solo, I think it's interesting, and I'm kind of I'm working on a new solo set now, and you know, I'm interested also in what that can do, and I think it's totally it I like doing it. It teaches me a lot about the music, and I often write a lot of things through playing solo, but there's also some cases where it's like you see more and more of like people playing like even when I I you know I saw Will Oldham like when I first moved to London, I'd see him play with a full band a lot, and I saw him play when we played at a festival and he came and had a a multi-instrumentalist with him. And it was I mean it also maybe he just wants to play that way or whatever, and it's it's no it's no like bad thing, but you can just kind of feel it happening a little bit in the culture. And I I guess I worry a little bit, you know, like because I'm based in Scandinavia, like I have a little bit of access to funding, which does help with things. Like I got some money to record the last album, which was like a big help. And but for other people who don't either don't just have money or have access to funding, I think a little bit, not that everything has to be a band, but I you know, I think as a person who I love like hearing people play music together. And I'm wondering like what we do in the kind of larger scheme of things, like going down the line. Like you can see totally exciting solo shows, but like I think it'd be a shame if like every concert was like a solo concert or something. Like I'd really hope, you know, I love seeing that interaction between people and um yeah, I don't know, but I think it's gonna it's gonna make some things come to a head. Maybe maybe it'd also mean that maybe like you know, maybe you get more into the local scene, you know, where you are, because it's like you know, it's easier for a bunch of teenagers can play together locally if they don't have to kind of deal with all the costs of touring, or I don't know.

Paul:

Yeah, yeah. I think I don't know. I think I think it sort of swings and roundabouts as well. I think there's so much uh like economic pressure against playing with other people, like perhaps more in the in the I guess in the format of like the band, you know, the the idea of being in the band, which I think can sometimes be different from like playing with a group of people. Um and you know, with the the influx of in the last 20 25 years of of DAW's sort of accelerating the idea of like, well, why why why do you need even need to do that? Um but then I guess it's like what you're saying about the AI as well. It's like there is there's something that you know you can't really teach. You just you can't really explain to people without sounding hyperbolic or I mean you've done a very good job of it, but I mean of of talking about it. But I mean it's people need to sort of do that for themselves to understand, I think a lot of the time, why it's it can be so enriching and beneficial, you know, or or they just have to have a good ear, you know, have a good ear for music that um as a listener, that um like yeah, that dynamic just came from like the band, whatever that those four people. It was a really pissy Monday, uh, something really bad had happened in the news, you know, someone's uh front door keys snapped off in their hand, and uh they someone else had a cold in the band, but yeah, they sort of just kind of really I don't know for some reason I'm thinking of something like Shellac or something, but you know, this this sort of atmosphere that comes from just keeping whatever's got happening in the world, you know, you're not even necessarily you're not doing something deliberately to reflect that. It's just that's what you bring in that day because that's what you've been carrying with you before you go in to the Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And also that's like what art is. Like I I I wrote about it a little bit like a little while ago, but like I had that experience when I was like when I was working in New York, like I had a day off, so I went to the Met, and like I lived in New York when I was younger, and I would go to the Met a lot because it was free, but like I wasn't, you know, seeing some of those paintings again ever not having seen them for maybe 15 or 20 years. And you know, the paintings from the what like 19th century, 18th century, and you know, still relating to a lot of things, and they were speaking to me now in a different way than they spoke to me when I was you know 19 or whatever, and like yeah, like Shellac can speak to you in different ways depending, like Shellac could speak to you if you were in a great mood and feeling really happy, like the energy of that music could like really be like uplifting. And if you were super bummed out and was really upset about something, like Steve Albini's energy could totally like speak to you as well, and like that's why it's good art because it's like it's it's you know, you can listen to it in a lot of different cases, it changes, you know, over time, but like retains something. And I think yeah, I think it's definitely like I mean, I'm I'm really excited about some of those revolutions in recording. Like, I used when I first started recording as a teenager, I just I didn't even have a four-track, I just recorded straight into a tape player, and then I had a four-track, and then I had like a zoom type thing, and then I you know record directly on a computer and like I've started using studios more for some of the recent things, but you know, I think I'm gonna also do some recording up in Sweden again because I really like recording in unusual places and the workflow you can get into, which is like and the fact that you can record that way in pretty good, you know, pretty good recordings, even with a fairly basic setup, I think also like frees you up to record in unusual environments, which to me was always like a lot of what like four tracks were about. Like it wasn't so much about like that it sounded cool that it was hissy or something, it means also that you can like be a teenager in some little town in Canada and like you know, with your friend and make like a record. And like that's like you know, what is kind of cool about four tracks. Like the kind of fidelity part is in a way like isn't always like that important. But it's like in a way, it's like the flip side. The thing I kind of sometimes like the the utility of like the Daw kind of situation is really cool in a way, but it can also like it can also, in a way, if you like learn music, you know, I've only I still kind of use like I use Pro Tools now, but I'm kind of using it like a four-track in a way. It's like my brain still works like a four-track. And so I have a very linear way of thinking about how I record, even if I'm doing things or I'm recording everything myself, it's still very linear. Whereas like if you've you know, there's a cool way if you've only ever grown up using that, like it wires your brain in a different way, which I totally can acknowledge can be really interesting. But um, I don't also I don't want to like kind of criticize anything because it's like for every example I could give, that would be like a negative example. I could find a really interesting, like positive example. But I'm interested still, like I like this thing that Jim O'Rourke said. Like I saw an interview with him from like the early 2000s when he was like doing some, you know, he'd done those kind of more singer-songwriter records, but he was also touring like Eureka and he'd done that kind of stuff, but he was like also touring, doing like laptop shows. And he was sort of saying, was like, well, I just you know, the laptop's an instrument, the guitar's an instrument. Like I think he was sort of and like I I kind of like I kind of quite like that. That like I'm I'm I think anything can be an exciting instrument. Like I've seen really boring, you know, bands play, and I've seen boring laptop shows, and I've seen the reverse, I've seen exciting laptop shows. But like that liveness for me is like being around together with people and connecting with people and feeling like you can see something that you wouldn't see or experience otherwise. And um, you know, I think like when I used to teach in an art school, the last few years I was teaching, I did a lot of things with performance and music and was getting a lot of art students to like make instruments and make sound and space with each other. And I think that was also for them of like. I feel like it was useful in terms of teaching them because it got them like off of using computers, even though computers like I use computers all the time, but like there there is something about that thing of being in a space with your body and a thing to make music, which could be your voice, it could be guitar, it could be a laptop, but like where you're sort of on you're on edge, like you're having to perform in real time, you're responding in real time. Like that's the part that's interesting to me, is like whatever it's you know, whether it's analog or digital isn't so important, but I'm interested in people responding to time, space, connecting with each other. And yeah, making making a record is an opportunity to like you know, I do spend a lot of time. I often have tracks like under process for a long time because I work on them for a while, listen to them, come up with new ideas, like they tend to get formed over time. And I'm interested in that compression that you might end up with a track that's only four minutes long when you've been working on it for six months.

unknown:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Not necessarily non-stop, but you're letting it be in play and then adding something, taking something away, and then you end up with something that reaches like this kind of final form. Now then when I play, they you know one of the reasons I like playing with the people that I play with, because they're very skilled musicians, both in terms of improvising and in terms of their ability to play by ear and work off certain structures that you know when we tour, like we can play things a little bit, you know, the basic structure is often there, but like they're a little bit different every night, and that's like makes those things so fun to play. Like because we know where we are more or less, but then yeah, there's just like different feel, the rooms feel different, like some sometimes it's like more sparse and stretched out, sometimes it's more intense. Like we we played a show in Glasgow that we'd played the night before at a place where, like, you know, it had gone sort of fine, but it was also even that funny thing where it was more of a concert hall, and I think it happens sometimes where like when you play in places like that, like the room sound and the stage sound can often be quite different.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

You get this kind of weird thing where like I would see like people reporting on their phones after, and I'm like, oh, it sounded like that in the room. Whereas for us, it was like and so and like so. We didn't have like I think it sounded good for the audience, but like we were a little bit on our toes because the stage sound was a bit like tricky for whatever reason. And then we we played the next night in Glasgow, and it was in more of like a kind of rock club, and it was one of those stages where it's like the ceiling was only like this much higher than my head, and and like quite deep, so you're in like a little box, but then because it was like that kind of rock PA, you're just sort of bathed in the sound. And I think because we've been a little bit frustrated the night before, we played with this like really kind of it was almost like it had a kind of like rock energy, and it was super fun to play, and I thought it sounded really good, and like our sound is exactly the same as the sound in the audience, and that was just like two shows you know in a row or whatever, but like that for me was the essence of what I like about playing live, is like, okay, we've made this record, the record stands this kind of this thing that I've you know fixed, but then like you know, when we toured like that Sunarx record, like a lot of those versions they would just kind of drift and transform. And by the end of like touring for a year, you know, we had these versions that felt really solid, and I really liked playing them. And then I actually listened back to the record of like, oh, they've actually kind of it still felt like those pieces, but like they'd kind of taken on the life of their own. And that was kind of what inspired me for like this last record of doing it a bit more of a band record, is like I was just hearing that sound a lot of that band, and I at least wanted that record to sort of feature that that sound and that feel because it was sort of the thing that was in my head a lot.

Paul:

Okay, so that was me, Paul Hamford, talking with Jason Dungan, aka Blue Lake, and we had that conversation on January the 22nd, 2026. Thank you so much, Jason, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. The album The Animal is out now on Tonal Union, and if you've not checked it out yet, it's well worth a listen. If you like the show and you haven't already, please give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on a platform of your choice. It really, really, really does help. And Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica, the global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, and microphones. Studio quality, yeah, affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnica.com to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode, is by Tom Giddens. And so, yeah, that's it. Hope whatever you're doing today, you have a really fantastic one, and I'll chat to you soon.