The lockdown has been bad for many artists as well as for most other people in this world. For a few, however, the period of standstill was a stroke of luck, a welcome break in the whirl of swelling hectic. One of them is the singer-songwriter Chris Dahlgren, who lives in New York, Berlin and Salzburg, and who is launching his third album "Got Milk" with his band Dhalgren. Chris Dahlgren a singer-songwriter? Isn't that a jazz bassist who has played with Anthony Braxton, Joe Lovano and Herb Ellis, among others, or in his Berlin days with Gebhard Ullmann as well as the lunatic trio Johnny La Marama? Correct. Chris Dahlgren is one of the world's most renowned jazz bassists, mastering all facets between tradition and avant-garde. But life is on the one hand too rich and on the other hand too short to limit oneself to just one idiom. With his band Dhalgren, Dahlgren interprets songs. His songs.
The term singer-songwriter says nothing about the nature of the songs. Chris Dahlgren is not a new Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen or Paul Simon, nor Konstantin Wecker nor Wolf Biermann, nor does he want to be anything like them. The songs on "Got Milk" have a transcendental independence that does not come into being in a vacuum, but is nevertheless a completely new combination of what already exists and what has been specially invented. His experience as a jazz musician and student of composers like Christian Wolff and La Monte Young definitely benefits him. Dahlgren's (or Dhalgren's) songs are not made for the campfire. Rather, they seem as if Ornette Coleman's harmolodic system, in which all the voices of a musical context unite without hierarchy to form a meta-context, were celebrating a wedding with the multi-stylistic hybrid of Tom Zé's Tropicalismo. Influences come together from all directions: imaginary bossa nova meets slow-motion folk, hypnotic drones dissolve into devotional silence, aleatoric songs dance into bluegrass avant-garde. Chris Dahlgren's gentle voice navigates between all this, slipping in between guitar, double bass, vibraphone and drums and becoming an instrument itself, where thoughts, words and sounds merge into one another.
A central motif of the album is impressions of nature. The boundlessness of perception in the mountains has had a lasting influence on Chris Dahlgren, who grew up in Denver, Colorado. It is not without reason that his life's path leads him from the Rocky Mountains via the street canyons of New York and Berlin ultimately to the Salzburg Alps. Whether his songs refer to real people or everyday experiences, the impression of the mountains plays a decisive role in all the tracks on the album. With enthusiasm, the song poet tells of the sight of the Milky Way or the moon yard at 4000 meters above sea level. Without wanting to invent a new genre, Dahlgren speaks of mountain music.
With guitarist Arne Braun, bassist Sidney Werner, vibraphonist Evi Filippou and singer Almut Kühne, Dahlgren has gathered four assets from Berlin's current cross-genre music scene. All four have gained experience in jazz, which they incorporate into their music in very different ways. Evi Filippou is a poet on the vibraphone who, like Dahlgren, tells a story with every note. No note is ever wasted with her. Her music sounds like garden architecture in which the organically grown and the creatively created grow harmoniously into one another. Sidney Werner is a young bassist who has been washed with all the waters, whose tone is always deeply connected to the earth's core, but does not always manifest itself in a massive and massive way, but also shows very delicate facets, especially when bowed. Arne Braun is probably one of the biggest insider tips on the international guitar scene. A guitarist who is so good above all because he himself has not the faintest idea how good he really is, and can therefore ennoble every context disinterestedly with his special idiom. Every note on his six-string has a casual urgency, as if it were equally his first and last. Vocally, Dahlgren receives support in three songs from Almut Kühne, who is at home in all areas of music and has an intuitive understanding of vocal instrumentation.
The sixth member of the group is drummer Alfred Vogel, an all-rounder who dances at so many weddings as a musician, bandleader, label operator, festival organizer and networker that one wonders how many clones he might actually have. For he pursues each of his projects, regardless of whether he himself is Spiritus Rector or, as with Dhalgren, sideman, with such intense dedication as if it were his only endeavors.
Six, or seven voices, since the bandleader not only sings but also plays guitar, interlock with a natural ease as if they had been united since the Pleistocene. This natural flow of the songs allows the shaping ear to surrender to the flow and let it drift wherever it calls to you. You can understand the words as part of the melodies, pick out individual key words and associate your own individual message with them, or get fully involved in Chris Dahlgren's profound wisdom, which is as lost in thought as it is profound.
Chris Dahlgren sings songs about his experiences of the last two years. These songs testify to a great vulnerability, but also to an even greater confidence. Unlike on Dahlgren’s previous album "Songs From A Dystopian Utopia", Dahlgren does not describe any dark abysses on "Got Milk". "Got Milk" is a refuge, a new territory that is not yet defined, but holds the chance of the first true utopia. On "Got Milk" Dhalgren switches on the light in dark times.
- Wolf Kampmann
credits
released October 27, 2023
Chris Dahlgren, acoustic guitar, viola da gamba, lead vocals
Arne Braun, electric & acoustic guitars, back voc
Evi Filippou, vibraphon, percussion, back voc
Sidney Werner, contrabass, backing vocs
Almut Kühne: additional vocals on "corona no. 16.", cherry blossoms in January"and "box of broken dreams"
produced by Chris Dahlgren
recorded, mixed and mastered by Thanos Karakantas at Secret Studios
Photography Lukas Hämmerle
Design by Lucas Dietrich
This music is conceived, performed & recorded without the use of electronic beats or artificial intelligence.
"a wild and wooly musical plunge into the unusual"
(NYC Jazz Record Magazin
2023)
Boomslang Records was founded by Alfred Vogel, drummer and festival promoter (Bezau Beatz). You will find mainly creative music here, from free improvised to complex contemporary jazz music, groovy stuff to singer/songwriters. It is all about the spirit and attitude, not genres ......more
Christian Lillinger is a musician/drummer/composer who is pushing todays music forward with no boundaries at all. Some of the finest improvisers meet here to share his vision. Boomslang Records
hang loose with this great singer/songwriter couple. love to listen to this while driving a car. a little rock´n´roll twist - never harm Boomslang Records
