Dina Ögon

Dina Ögon @ Jazz Cafe, London, UK, November 16, 2023,

Nov 26, 2023
By Irina Shtreis

Internet Unique

“I purchased a brand new lipstick, is it throughout my face now?”. At London’s Jazz Cafe, Dina Ögon’s singer Anna Ahnlund talks to the viewers between the numbers in a really informal method – simply as if she have been speaking to a buddy. “You look nice!”, they reply. Somebody declares their love in Swedish: “Jag älskar dig”.

Circulate-like music of Swedish psychedelic jazz quartet Dina Ögon (interprets as “Your Eyes”) has infiltrated the UK market solely not too long ago. Their 2021 eponymous debut album was reissued by massive Scandinavian label and distributor Playground Music final yr. Since then, the curiosity has been rising naturally – just a few folks on the present admitted they’d discovered Dina Ögon on streaming providers by coincidence and have been listening to their music on repeat since then.

However, this month’s present at London’s Jazz Cafe is their first-ever look in Britain. Seeing them reside, one will get the thought of how this affinity develops. As a lot as each of their albums (together with this yr’s Oas), the band grows on you. They heat up the considerably lukewarm house with mellifluous tunes in addition to dreamy and infrequently bird-mimicking vocals. Regardless of the mid-November gloom, spring is within the air.

The present on the iconic Camden venue is a part of the annual EFG London Jazz Competition. Though they’re billed as a Scandinavian soul act, Dina Ögon’s heat hues synesthetically lengthen to numerous colors and dimensions of music. On “Dolus and Culpa”, there are mellow textures indicating their, maybe, distant kinship with Khruangbin, whereas extra jazz-inclined tracks with a touch of exotica would possibly recall to mind Manufacturing unit Information’ signings Kalima. Suffused in reverberating polyphony, “Sol” echoes the Motown period in addition to the quirkiness of Swedish prog.

This night at Jazz Cafe sees the band members Anna Ahnlund (vocals and guitar), Daniel Ögren (synths and guitar), Love Örsan (bass) and Christopher Cantillo (percussion) greeted by a combined viewers of Brits and fellow Scandinavians. There are just a few moments when the trade between the collective and the followers goes on in Swedish. Nonetheless, this doesn’t impose a language barrier for the remainder. Quite the opposite, a type of synergy is achieved as everybody appears to be overpowered by the mild power of their music.