NICOLAI DUNGER ”THE VESSEL” (EP) Release January13

These eight new songs on ”The Vessel” were recorded on Nicolai’s mobile phone in Nikke Ströms flat in Gothenburg. While mixing the songs in a studio in Stockholm, engineer Martin Ehrencrona took up the flute for the first time ever in much the same way as Nicolai decided that he quickly needed to learn to play double bass for this EP. The songs and lyrics themselves are pretty much improvised.

There’s a reason for this. They capture something rather private, like were we not really supposed to hear this. A howl from the depths of a broken heart. Songs of – recent, very recent - loss and regret. Intellectually, Dunger knows this may not be the most rational decision, but the intention was to capture those feelings in real time, while still in the midst of the confusing maze that is the end of a love. Music and lyrics recorded while the artist is still standing outside Her flat; in the street, looking up, waiting for something he knows won’t - and maybe shouldn’t - happen. The 3AM phone calls, straight to machine, still he calls again. And Again. It’s probably raining. The effect, to these ears, is desolate and desperate – awkward and slightly clumsy even. But therein lies the beauty and immediacy of these eight spontaneous recordings. Heartbreak captured as it happens.

But as Nicolai himself says:

”This is still pop music! I didn’t want these songs to be neither arty nor difficult.”

The newly learnt double bass is the EP’s slightly anxious and irregular heartbeat. Occasionally, a harmonica further underlines the sorrow, Ehrencronas flute the only instrument offering any kind of light, by itself it kinda tries to open the windows; letting in air, life and sun into the chaotic mess of the singers heart. The songs are short. The loneliness in Dunger’s voice sometimes just loses its energy - or even (from the sound of it) its will to live - and yet another song just has to end, suddenly, almost without explanation.

”The Vessel” was recorded in just one day and most of the same night. That was it.

These recordings expire the only way they probably could; in musical silence. The last song,”Walking (Towards Ruin) Bass”, is instrumental, Per ”Texas” Johansson’s saxophone a necessary substitute for the now exhausted human voice.

There are no words left. As for now, there is nothing more to say.

Andres Lokko, Stockholm, January 2023.