Reviews

Toneshift

Likely my favorite this month, the expert blend of incidental chords and left turns, ultimately listenable and off-putting. If you indulge, like me, in works that blend the lymphatically drained side of beauty, this is for you. In one hand it has some in common with Kenneth Kirschner, in the other, warped exploratory drone that is fiercely defiant. It’s an enchanting work of minimalism, that taunts and teases with bells and other devices. These are a collection of soundtrack compositions for a series of short films (some of which you can see here) by the artist (NY’r Jeff Düngfelder) and you can expect this record out on January 9th – so consider this an early sneak peek!

Igloo Magazine

Minimal textures surrounded by swaths of brittle sonic noise, Ümlaut (aka Jeff Düngfelder) is new to these ears, but a welcomed retreat into a beat-less world. Fading loops, subdued clicks, and minuscule tones drift in far away places, the drones broken into layers of emotive debris. The Queens, New York-based musician creates randomized and weightless sounds that dither away with each listen on Musique De Film.

With slight manipulation of harsher audibles (ie. “Without End”), one can find rugged distortion and undulating low-end shards in the background. There are also more organic streams as evidenced on “How Silent The Trees,” where abstract notes are carefully fractured and seamlessly expand the subconsciousness. “Sleeper” is an evolved transmission where the listener is treated to a harsher hypnotism—its foggy vibrations are both eerie and somehow transcendental. Delicately woven melodies flicker as “On The Feelings That Stay” maneuvers elongated glitchy strands through its microscopic elements. Field recordings left astray, a flowing collection of static blips and irregular whirs inhabits the closing piece (“Sinister”) as it launches into a surreal atmospheric organism.

In all, Audiobulb sets yet another fine blueprint for exploratory electronic music as Ümlaut’s Musique De Film revitalizes a new year for one of our favorite long-running digital imprints.

Cyclic Defrost

New York-based electronic producer Jeff Düngfelder emerged under his Ümlaut alias back in 2017 with his debut album ‘Vasco De Gama’, and two years on this download-only follow-up ‘Musique De Filme’ sees him joining the Audiobulb label roster. As with that preceding album, the 13 tracks collected veer between ambient, IDM and noise elements, with sometimes jarring results.

Opening track ‘Memory’ showcases this seemingly haphazard jump-cutting between moods and textures, as echoing glacial piano notes are suddenly overtaken by bursts of digitally processed noise, only for forlorn orchestration to sudden swell into focus at the very end amidst crackling layers of static.

‘Dot’ gets more atmospheric and ominous as brooding bass drones growl against long sustained melodic notes, the dark synth tones that spiral towards the track’s forefront against buzzing electrical hums suggesting a John Carpenter film score as coldly phased sweeps wash past in the background. Elsewhere, ‘Parrish’ peels away the more jagged elements in favour of an float through soft-focus ambient pads and elegantly abstracted piano arrangements, in what’s one of the rare moments of true stillness to be found here.

‘In-Out’ meanwhile contains one of the most inspired collisions of sounds here as dark ambient bass tones and and eerie background howls are suddenly overtaken by the percussive clatter of a sampled train, the layered textures blurring into a single onrush of cinematic textures. While it takes a few listens for Düngfelder’s intention to really reveal themselves amidst the occasionally seemingly chaotic fusions at play here, ‘Musique De Filme’ is worth your time.

Silence and Sound

Jeff Düngfelder aka Ümlaut compose pour les courts-métrages qu’il réalise, des bandes-sons pleines de motifs superposés et de mélancolie poétique. Mais Musique de Film se vit aussi de manière intrinsèque, libérant à chaque écoute ses scénarios personnels, offrant à l’auditeur la possibilité de construire ses propres films en ouvrant le champs de suggestions subjectives.

L’artiste explore l’infiniment petit pour construire un monde emprunt de particules mouvantes et de loops aux motifs entêtants, érigeant des zones baignées de flous équilibristes à la beauté charnelle.

Ümlaut continue de nous surprendre et de nous entrainer dans des sphères naturalistes, avec ses samples du quotidien aux amples origines, où mélodies et rythmes forment un ensemble à mi-chemin entre la prise de son et l’electro acoustique, l’expérimentation et la poésie. Très fortement recommandé.