Dungen :: Kalifen / Hî¤xan (Limited Deluxe Version)

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The end of 2016 saw the return of Dungen, via Hî¤xan – an instrumental album commissioned by Anders Annikas of the Swedish Film Institute. The gig was to create a new original score to Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. As firsts go, the film is notable as the oldest surviving feature-length animated film; preceding Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by nearly a decade. As score’s go, Dungen’s is notable in that it highlights the group’s varied, chameleon-like, strengths via 14 inspired soundscapes.

The group is set to perform their live score to  The Adventures of Prince Achmed at six dates across the United States, beginning March 15th in Philadelphia and wrapping in Los Angeles at the Getty Museum on the 21st. To coincide with the run a limited deluxe version of Hî¤xan is now available–of which the above video (directed by Jenny Palen, on Super 8) is culled.

We have a copy of the vinyl test-pressing of Hî¤xan to give away to an AD reader. To enter, leave a comment below stating your favorite film soundtrack / score, and why.

Related: The Lagniappe Sessions: Dungen cover Aphex Twin and Wil Malone

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68 thoughts on “Dungen :: Kalifen / Hî¤xan (Limited Deluxe Version)

  1. Have to go with Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” OST. Matches the vibe of the movie perfectly, but is also such a strong record as an entity separate from the movie.

  2. I”ll say “Bodysong” by Jonny Greenwood. It’s varied due to the subject matter of the film (life and death) so it’s not constantly ominous like There Will be Blood (also great). There are some great percussive bangers and jazz on it, and I think it’s his first solo/score collection, so it’s more raw than his other stuff.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWqVSIxUBc0

  3. Nora Orlandi – Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh (The Strange Vice of Ms. Wardh) — indredibly moving Giallo score from an underrated Italian composer — seek it out, trust me!

  4. I love contemporary soundtracks for classic silent movies. The one that slipped through my grasp was a live performance by Yat Kha to the Russian film “Storm over Asia”. While they did preform the work several times in 2001, the showing I was scheduled to see in October that year was cancelled due to events the month previous. The press said a DVD release would be forthcoming, but I do not think it ever came out.

  5. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly by Ennio Morricone
    absolutely amazing and iconic. you know the score is great when people who haven’t even seen the movie know music from it 🙂

  6. Ry Cooder’s “Paris, TX”…Cooder’s soundtrack perfectly accompanies not only the desolate West Texas landscape prominent in the film, but the emotional desolation that is explored in the characters and their histories. Harry Dean Stanton’s “Cancion Mixteca” is one of the more sad and beautiful things I’ve ever heard.

  7. Jack Nitzche’s 1975 score for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Beautiful, pastoral ’70s folk jangles just on the edge of being spooky and psychedelic. Like the film itself, a total trip. Plus, great use of marimba and harmonic sprinkled here and there.

  8. The Revenant, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto with additional music by Bryce Dessner. This excellent score made a slow paced film into an excellent, meditative work on life and death on the frontier.

  9. I donno if Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks counts, since it was released as a standalone record well before For All Mankind was finished, but if it does, definitely that! Eno & Lanois at their most crucial.

  10. Ralph Bakshi’s 1973 film Heavy Traffic OST score by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin. It’s funking early seventies street vibe with jive.

  11. Jonny Greenwood- There Will Be Blood — PTA, Daniel Day Lewis, and Jonny Greenwood all involved in a film was pretty much guaranteed to be brilliant from the get-go, but the reoccurring, jarring string arrangements created an unforgettable atmosphere throughout the film. Can’t wait for the new film they’re all collaborating on!
    Shout out to Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack too. Another collaboration that was guaranteed to be great, but exceeded even the highest expectations in my opinion.

  12. Neil Young’s score to Dead Man. It matches the aesthetic of the film perfectly: stark, simple, a LITTLE supernatural.

  13. Potentially it’s because it’s been in the news recently, but Trainspotting’s soundtrack is a pretty great meld of the movie’s tone, topic, location and time. It was also the first time I heard “Perfect Day”, so points for that.

  14. Alain Goraguer’s Fantastic Planet score. Helped turn me on to the amazing arrangement combination of orchestral flourishes and funky drums. A mother of a score.

  15. Ennio Morricone’s Soundtrack for Sergio Leone’s magnum opus “Once upon a time in the West”. Each of the main characters has their own musical motif that underline their scenes and cue your focus to subliminal personal developments. These musical motifs even combine to create overlapping melodies the create an emotional crescendo in scenes like the final duel. The soundtrack was made before filming and was played on set during filming, creating more depth and cohesiveness to the actors’ performances.

  16. Philip Glass’s score for Koyaanisqatsi is tied into the structure of the film that it is impossible to think of the work without it. Amazing blend of sound and visuals.

  17. “The Comedy”. Have it on vinyl and it always makes me happy. Contains Gayngs, William basinski, here we go magic etc

  18. There is a great soundtrack to a film called “Morvern Callar” released in 2002.
    It has some indie staples I was into at the time like, Broadcast, Stereolab, Boards of Canada and the Velvet Underground. The best part about the film and soundtrack is it introduced me to bands like, Can, Lee Hazelwood and got me back into the world beats of Lee Sratch Perry. Although the film was not a hit the soundtrack was an explosion of sound and diversity!

  19. Gotta go with Bo Hansson, even though it’s not a real OST, Lord of the Rings is an absolute masterpiece.

  20. Geroge Romero’s movie called “Martin” score by Donald Rubinstein. This soundtrack is amazing in its strangeness. It has some great early synthesized sounds combined with just some interesting low noises that create this intense suspense while matched with the movie’s visuals which isn’t that overtly scary. I love it!

  21. The soundtrack to ‘Up in the Air’. It announces itself with Sharon Jones’ tight funk take on “This Land is Your Land”, but slowly winds and withers into a deep melancholy on the sighs of Elliott Smith’s “Angel in the Snow”, Dan Auerbach’s listless “Goin’ Home”, and a disarming demo of Graham Nash’s “Be Yourself”.

  22. The soundtrack for “Jodorowsky’s Dune” by Kurt Stenzel is amazing! Such a beautiful soundtrack. It is what I would imagine the atmosphere of Dune would require had Jodoroswky completed the epic undertaking and needed someone to score his piece in modern times.

  23. Gotta agree with the Dead Man Soundtrack. Neil Young’s guitar is an unseen actor throughout the entire film. The driving wheel on a locomative. The ghost of William Blake. The perfect compliment to Jarmusch’s black and white depiction of a graphic novel vision of the West.

  24. “Fargo” (The Movie) Carter Burwell’s haunting ode to just how far people will go when they are pushed to the mental edge by the banalities of life (and weather)

    To me, the key to any good soundtrack is this. Is it as crucial as any individual character in the film? “Fargo” is a resounding “Yes”

  25. I love soundtracks! My current infatuation is Riz Ortolani, one of many great Italian film music composers, in particular the Cannibal Holocaust score. Don’t think I could ever watch the movie, but it is hard to imagine that it is gruesome based on the amazingly beautiful melody which occurs throughout the score.

    Of course, anything John Carpenter. It helps when you are both the director and composer.

  26. Cinema Paradiso by Ennio and Andrea Morricone.

    It captures the emotion of the story very well, and the soundtrack itself a just as great even without the movie 🙂 Still moving after 29 years.Very accessible melody.

  27. Baraka by Ron Fricke
    Music by Michael Stearns

    This non-narrative documentary places images of human ambition against those of the natural world with an unjudgemental eye. The most successful part of the soundtrack is a sequence where the music and image juxtapose to create emotional tension.
    The moment where Dead Can Dance’s “Host of Seraphim” contrasts images of Indian peasants searching through garbage heaps for food is strangely yet beautifully uplifting.

  28. Sicario – the music (and landscape) deserve best supporting actor nominations in this movie.

  29. Michael Andrews score for Me And You And Everyone Know is my favorite. Some tracks have this playfulness that brings to mind Mark Mothersbough’s soundtrack for Life Aquatic while others have this sort of melancholy electropop thing going on (“Goldfish” for instance).

  30. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – Bob Dylan

    The soundtrack fits the feel and open spaces of the movie perfectly. The music is appropriately sparse and adds another layer of depth to the film. It works as a stand alone album but also makes even more sense when it is paired with specific scenes.

  31. The Beyond OST by Fabio Frizzi is my all time favorite. Perfectly spooky with incredibly memorable themes and just mountains of mellotron all over this beast.

  32. Tough one – I could go with just about any of the James Bond soundtracks because there’s at least one hit one everyone that was a hit. But I could also do Sound Of Music because it so perfectly ties into the visuals and scenes from a movie everyone is so familiar with. I’ll go with Casino Royale (Bacharach) or actually, The Pink Panther (Mancini) because he’s so brilliant a composer and that whole record is quite lovely…actually just a huge Mancini fan, and I think the name frequently scares people away, but shouldn’t!

  33. I leave love the production libraries of the 1960-70s like KPM, Bruton, and De Wolfe. If I had to pick a soundtrack/score, it would be KPM 1071: The Brazilian Suite. Tons of great bossa/ samba sounds with a great horn arrangement. There’s also a lot of great compilations like Dramatic Funk Themes, Apollo Sound: The Mozart Lounge, and Luke Vibert’s Nuggets 3.

  34. Apocalypse Now soundtrack… Best ever. just listen to the intro. no more need be said.

    See you guys in Philly.

  35. Though the soundtrack is a compilation of a wide range of rock’n’roll tracks from various 60’s and 70’s bands, the soundtrack from the Boat That Rocked always gets me fired up and filled with love for the world (of music) – even in sad times!

  36. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. i remember finishing the film and immediately looking up the score, especially “Row” which i then listened to a thousand times in a row(no pun intended). It was my introduction to Jon Brion, who i was delighted to see was linked to other artists that I love. It wasn’t the first score that i was into, but the first time that one hit me so hard.

  37. “The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue” (No Profanar El Sueño De Los Muertos) by Giuliano Sorgini. Incredible, especially “strait jacket”

    Thanks!!

  38. The Keep. Fantastic soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. Quite a spooky movie with a dreamy music making it even spookier.

  39. Spike Lee’s Crooklyn for the fact that the music is so emersive I could see myself as a member of the on screen family living life in slightly older version of NYC

  40. I like the trash film soundtrack work of Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis, especially the tunes Goodbye My Friend, Driving All Around, and the Eurodisco theme from Raiders of Atlantis.

  41. Motorcycle Diaries soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. No other pieces could fit those scenes so perfectly. Completely transporting. Travelling through Argentina on a shitty bus listening to this soundtrack was probably one of those moments I’ll carry with me forever

  42. Big fan of Dungen, and Haxar is exemplary work. I would love a vinyl edition! One of my first fave soundtracks was Vampyros Lesbos — the film, meh, but when I discovered the music in early 00s, it lead me on a path looking for more psychedelic (sexadelic!) party music. These days I go for old Popol Vuh or Tangerine Dream soundtrack work. Cheers!

  43. Hello!!! Huge Düngen fan 🙂
    my favorite soundtrack/score is Fantastic Planet. The music carries the scenes into even deeper psychedelic wonderings and propels the images into swirling technicolor. It’s a full fledged magical experience. I was lucky enough to find a copy of the LP which is so groovy as a musical piece alone. Häxan would go beautifully beside my copy of Fantastic Planet! Great job on the score guys! Peace.

  44. Really enjoying Häxan, would love to see this live accompanied with a screening of Prince Achmed. Off the top of my head, fave soundtrack is Don’t think I’ve Forgotten – that era of Cambodian music is unique, amazing and needs to be heard by more people. With apologies to Down from the Mountain, Big Lebowski, Dark Days, iRazor, Morricone & Tarantino directed OSTs etc…

  45. My favorite film score must be Pink Floyds music to Barbet Schroeders movie More from 1969! Great album by itself and a perfec score for the wierd but beautiful movie.

  46. Ennio Morricone’s ‘The good, The Bad and The Ugly’ for its groundbreaking use of reverb guitar and voices to mimic the cry of the chayote in the old Wild West. Absolutely memorable.

  47. One From The Heart Tom Waits tho it’s a musical, a dirty words theses days.

    Apologies to Tangerine Dream, “Thief” & Cliff Martinez “Drive”.

  48. Really hard one, but might have to go with Popol Vuh’s soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu – hauntingly gorgeous minimalist/acoustic psychedelia, and the only possible (!!!) accompaniment to those hallucinatory landscapes and twisted myths painted onscreen. A whole other level of film/music symmetry. Seamless!

  49. REPOMAN. i came across this movie on TV, late one night when i was about 14. The zits, the erections, the confusion, the excitement of being a hormone ridden teenager was reflected right there on screen. Next day, I had a shirt out and penned my own suicidal tendencies design on the back. A year or so later, I found the soundtrack and thirty years later, I still take that same copy to every dj gig. Never gets old. “let’s get sushi!…and not pay!”

  50. my fav soundtrack is Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and the movie with judo chopping babes and fast cars is a real hit.

  51. My favorite film score is François Truffaut’s the 400 blows. It’s perfectly of its era and captures the mood of the film and what I imagine Paris in the late 50s to be like perfectly. It’s the first (and only) score to make me nostalgic for an era i never even experienced- It’s that captivating. The perfect score

  52. Dead Man soundtrack by Neil Young. Haunting, but soothing, mirroring the visual tone and pacing of the film.

  53. Too many classics to choose from, so we’ll go with favorite OST in recent memory: “Beyond the Black Rainbow” (Sinoia Caves). An excellent complement to this odd, cerebral, meditative sci-fi movie that takes place in the 1980s. A heady mix of synths, roaring organ and Mellotron that doesn’t come off as cliche and takes me to the place I like to go (and sometimes my 2-year old daughter). Kudos as well to whoever mixed and mastered it, because it sounds massive through a proper stereo.

    Can’t wait for Dungen at the Garfield Park Conservatory here in Chicago!

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