As Blue Lake, Jason Dungan makes music that crosshatches two disparate genres: the distinctly American, experimental guitar records made by artists like Yasmin Williams and Steve Gunn; and what might be called the “new Danish scene,” populated by avant-garde songwriters including Astrid Sonne and ML Buch. But Dungan doesn’t fit neatly in either category; the Copenhagen-via-Dallas composer and artist is an inventive traditionalist at heart, crafting a blend of drone, folk, and ambient that feels attuned to his Texan home—with riffs that sound like old country ditties—despite being made an ocean away. Billed as a “mini-album” preceding an as-yet unannounced larger release, his latest, Weft, is a snapshot of the Blue Lake project in motion as it further braids together masterful precision and naturalistic experimentation.
Weft begins almost exactly where Dungan’s 2023 debut album, Sun Arcs, left off, setting his beloved nylon string guitar atop a bed of cello and gently brushed drums. Like water flowing from one eddy to another, he’ll catch a melodic refrain, spend a few bars with it, then move on to the next. The album’s title refers to the work of Dugan’s partner, Maria Zahle, a weaver and textile artist whose piece “Torso” appears on the cover. Its individual strands of colored thread, barely affixed to the cloth beneath, serve as a handy visual metaphor for how Dungan gently ushers sounds—including piano, melodica, and 12-string guitar, all of which appear more frequently and prominently here than on Sun Arcs—in and out of the mix, making his arrangements feel populous, but never cluttered.
This expanded instrumentation is put to its greatest effect on Weft’s longer compositions. “The Forest” broadly follows a linear progression of build, climax, and denouement, but its magic moment comes right before the two-minute mark, when crystalline treble tones cohere, at the entrance of a bass riff, into something resembling a classic pop song. Meanwhile, the live-recorded “Tartara” features the only musicians other than Dungan to appear on the album and is, appropriately, far more meandering. Named for a volcano in the Chilean Andes studied by his geologist father, the meditative, drone-adjacent piece includes found percussion, courtesy of Dungan, that evokes the crackle of sparks in the air—like a campfire singalong composed for neo-classical quartet.
Despite radiating a gentle, unassuming tranquility, Weft rarely bores. Part of that can be credited to the engineering work of Jeff Zeigler (a past collaborator of fellow zither savant Laraaji), who lovingly draws attention to each instrument: a piano flourish here, a flute line there. It’s also due to Dungan’s own creative playfulness, which extends beyond his recorded music to include running the creative residency space Polychrome alongside Zahle and designing his own custom zithers. One such creation—this time with 36 strings—is the sole instrument on “Strata,” Weft’s spare closing note. It’s a joy to hear Dungan’s approach: all the giddiness of a child with a new toy, and all the skill of the man who made the toy himself.
