Blue Lake is the music of American artist Jason Dungan, shaped by living on a Copenhagen island where wild parkland sits on reclaimed industrial ground and flight paths cross the sky. We sit down to explore how place, practice, and people turn Americana and ambient textures into something fused with a European sensibility. 

Jason shares the pivot from visual art to sound, and why Don Cherry’s spirit sits at the project’s core—not as a template but as a way of working that welcomes risk, collaboration, and porous borders. We unpack how chords feel different when five musicians make them together, how a rock club can unlock a set the concert hall couldn’t, and why the best parts of a record often come from the problems you refuse to outsource. Along the way, we talk recording in Sweden’s forests beside factories, treating albums like thoughtfully built exhibitions, and keeping the human pulse in music even as tools get slicker.

We also zoom out. Touring with a band in the UK, leaning on Scandinavian funding, and balancing freelance work all reveal the new economics artists navigate. Jason calls out AI’s promise to “solve” creative labour as missing the point—the friction is the point. And when politics intrudes, it’s real: living in Denmark means Greenland is neighbours, language, history, protest. Small-country confidence, built on community and cooperation, mirrors the values in Blue Lake’s sound.

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Blue Lake on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/the_bluelake/?hl=en

Blue Lake on Bandcamp:

https://bluelake1.bandcamp.com/

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.