https://umlaut.work/contact daily 0.75 2022-04-10 https://umlaut.work/about daily 0.75 2025-12-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/89880f7d-3f8b-4997-b40a-1132e26d3434/Jeff+12.9.2025+B%2BW.jpg About - Ümlaut is Jeff Düngfelder, a U.S. experimental composer/sound artist now based in the northern Connecticut countryside. The thematic concepts distinguishing his work are absence and silence; the ineffable exchange between viewer and image; random moments of stillness within a landscape in flux. Using a minimalistic, electro-acoustic approach, his elusive patchwork of field recordings and electronics merge the world of shadows and colours. His memory recordings expose the complex relationship between music and silence. In addition to his solo recordings as Ümlaut, Jeff Düngfelder mixes his own electronica with downtempo and jazz elements as a member of Intelligent Life, the trio that equally features Mike Brown on contrabass, and Joshua Trinidad on trumpet. https://umlaut.work/new-album daily 0.75 2022-04-09 https://umlaut.work/reviews daily 0.75 2026-01-28 https://umlaut.work/home daily 1.0 2026-03-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/47c52a2e-89bb-427b-b94f-88adddbf2731/HipstamaticPhoto-665415955.966657.jpg Home - electronica : : ambient : : minimal : : experimental https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/16d23549-64ee-4deb-b41c-aadb26366b98/The+eyes+close+COVER+%283000%29.jpg Home - Ümlaut THE EYES CLOSE, THE WORDS OPEN “The eyes close, the words open” unfolds as a single, slow passage of listening. Composed of two extended works, the album invites attention inward, where sound exists at the edge of perception and meaning emerges through duration rather than statement. Inspired by Octavio Paz’s lines, “All is visible and all elusive, / all is near and can’t be touched,” the music inhabits a space between presence and disappearance, where tone, texture, and silence are held in careful balance. Field recordings, minimal gestures, and restrained electronic elements drift and settle over time, shaped as much by absence as by sound. Ümlaut’s long-standing engagement with visual practice—design, photography, and moving image—quietly informs the work, allowing the music to be sensed spatially, almost visually, as layers come into and out of focus. The album artwork reflects this approach: a horizon that never resolves, a surface marked by subtle repetitions, negative space given equal weight. Here, sound does not progress so much as hover, trace, and dissolve. “The eyes close, the words open” is less a narrative than a condition—an invitation to remain with what is near, elusive, and unfinished. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/24f34635-d1e3-4bb9-a4b5-ac22f4d469a0/Paul+Beaudoin+%2B+%C3%9Cmlaut+-+Cairn+%285000%29.jpg Home - Paul Beaudoin + Ümlaut CAIRN In Cairn, Düngfelder’s focus on atmosphere and perception meets Beaudoin’s concern with time and memory, creating a dialogue where each sound becomes a trace left for the other to follow. What remains is a series of sonic markers, small monuments to attention, letting listeners linger on in the fragile continuations of sound. For Paul Beaudoin, sound unfolds like thought taking shape in time. His work traces the thresholds between hearing and remembering, where tones blur and stillness collapses into the echo of memory. Drawing from acoustic and electronic sources, he builds soundscapes that encourage the listener to sense how meaning gathers and disintegrates through the act of listening. Each piece offers a quiet architecture of concentration, inviting us to dwell within the fragile persistence of sound. In Ümlaut's (aka Jeff Düngfelder) work, textures rarely stop, they linger. Layers of field recordings and electronic atmospheres drift and fuse until motion becomes still. His compositions observe how the world hums beneath its surface: wind caught in wires, the grain of passing air, a memory replayed through static. Working from a minimal palette, he shapes textures that feel both intimate and vast, allowing listeners to encounter a landscape where everything moves, yet nothing hurries. Each piece is a quiet act of attention, an instance of noticing before it dissolves into distance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/df317d5e-c7eb-4768-a8e3-a46488365762/Liminal+Space.jpg Home - Ümlaut LIMINAL SPACE Liminal Space is a slowly moving, abstract wave of noise leading to harmony as it forms pools of lighter sound from the dark shadows. “In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors,” said William Blake. Ümlaut’s new album, “Liminal Space,” is an exploration of that illusive place of the “in-between.” His sound experiments strive to ideate the time of transition between the past and the future. Of leaving the familiar behind to await what has yet to be discovered. Ümlaut is interested in that particular interval of waiting. The title of the album is derived from the Latin word “limen,” which means “threshold.” Ümlaut is an explorer of that threshold. Liminal spaces open the door to silence and memory. Ümlaut often refers to his music as memory recordings, because in silence the music reveals itself through memory. Starting with no preconceived idea or structure, he works more as a seeker and explorer looking for what he can find. Being in nature, viewing abstract art and reading poetry often open a door. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/c573faab-90a3-438e-b90c-dcfe7e4fbee5/Musique+de+Film+III.jpg Home - Ümlaut MUSIQUE DE FILM III Following in the tracks of Musique de Film I & Musique de Film II, Ümlaut’s new album, Musique de Film III, continues to explore the relationship between sound and vision. As a point of departure, this album presents a new creative direction in the evolution Ümlaut’s unique world. Each of the twelve audio and video tracks were created individually and simultaneously, with an overarching theme of perpetual geographies in mind. While the titles impart hints as to a song’s inherent meaning, room is left for listeners to discover their own interpretations. Simplicity is the key. For maximum sensual impact, songs are stripped down their essentials. Nothing is superfluous. The sound is futuristic, yet immediate, where being in the moment yields rewards. A palette of atmospheric colours and spectral harmonics lures the listener into a peaceful dimension of silence and harmony, where delicate field recordings and distorted textures are threaded with warmth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/f71a7427-d5fd-451e-addc-27f021622246/Penumbra+Cover+Art+small.jpg Home - Ümlaut PENUMBRA The new album by Ümlaut, called “Penumbra,” is a natural extension of his most recent album, “The distance between two points.” In the former, listeners are taken on a planetary voyage through infinite space. With “Penumbra,” listeners are invited to sonically absorb the phenomenon of a partial eclipse — when the alignment of the sun, moon and earth cause an occluding body to obscure a fragment of a light source. Continued experimentation with tape loops, field recordings and synthesizers create new abstract soundscapes, which explore the regions of the umbra. Shadows are partial and imperfect. Imperfections brought to the forefront of the compositions simultaneously expose their shadow sides. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/3988c886-4014-44db-bce1-503829aaa770/Qualia+ART+BC.jpg Home - Intelligent Life QUALIA The seductive new album by Intelligent Life is an immersion into suchness. Composed during the dead of winter, with hints of jazz, ambient and downtempo, each of the eleven tracks offers the listener a subjectively conscious encounter, wherein experience and ultimate reality are inseparable. Trinidad’s ethereal trumpet interwoven with Brown’s soulful contrabass and Düngfelder’s meticulous arrangement of electronic nuances inhabit both the acoustic and electronic worlds. Within a framework of nondualism, qualia explores the interconnectedness and unified entirety of all things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/474e5fdd-63eb-432b-b130-d3d1a4a9c7cf/The+distance+between+two+points+%285000%29.jpg Home - Ümlaut THE DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS In his new album, “The distance between two points,” Ümlaut invites the listener on a different sort of journey. His inaugural album, Vasco Da Gama, released in 2017, expressed a seafaring expedition of discovery. Stimulated by a similar wanderlust the new album launches the listener into space. The esoteric teachings of Pythagoras were an inspiration for the album. In his Musica Universalis, the Greek polymath postulates that planetary movement, in accordance with mathematical ratios, orchestrates a cryptic and inaudible symphony. The album’s soundscape is revealed in the spaces between silence and noise. The complexity and transient nature is further enhanced by random clicking, staticky waves, and fluctuating echoes and drones. The tracks that comprise this five-part suite diverge from fundamental musical tradition. A manipulation of musique concrète opens a door to myriad listening possibilities. The combination of tape loops, field recordings and synthesizers results in a multi-layered soundscape of abstract rhythms and textures. By stretching the boundaries of sound art, Ümlaut has reconfigured the space-time continuum. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/bb14d01d-e836-41ac-a43d-55f56d04d1ee/Mitochondria+Johatsu+-+Cover+Art.jpg Home - OdNu + Ümlaut MITOCHONDRIA JOHATSU It was the philosopher Aristotle that first coined the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In the case of the new album “Mitochodria Johatsu” by OdNu + Ümlaut (Michel Mazza & Jeff Düngfelder), this rings true. Both artists have lived many years in New York City, and both now reside in the countryside a few hours north of the city. This is their second album together on Audiobulb Records following the well-received Abandoned Spaces. It follows on the heels of solo outings - Odnu’s “Time Is A Place” and Ümlaut’s “Un Être Humain Ordinaire.” In their newest collaboration, artists OdNu & Ümlaut have perfectly captured the moment in the truest sense of ambient music — compositions that are interesting, calm and intelligent. Through an effortless merging of two minds, their respective worlds of sound and experimentation are even further expanded in this new album. During the listening experience thoughts dissolve into open space. Michel’s interplay of instruments, electronics, tiny melodies and grainy decomposed sounds; along with Jeff’s tape loops, atmospherics, fresh textures and micro rhythms, flow seamlessly into a diaphanous river of sound. Listening is a joy. A true alchemy of sound and vision. “We were striving to visualize an abstract concept by weaving together our unique sounds. Imagine a bird flying over the water, swooping gently up and down, almost touching the surface, but not quite. Creating a pattern similar to the warp and weft of fabric, but in this case the fabric of sound.” — Michel & Jeff https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/bca7a83f-0d63-4efe-bd75-6eec7cb6c70e/Un+%C3%AAtre+humain+ordinaire+ART+3000x3000+%4072.jpg Home - Ümlaut UN ÊTRE HUMAIN ORDINAIRE The album cover of Ümlaut’s “Un être humain ordinaire” (an ordinary human being) suggests a sense of being on the edge. But on the edge of what? Each track title offers a clue as to the methodology of Düngfelder’s aesthetic intentions. Precise and focused, there are no accidents here. A pathway to a very personal world has been created—a world replete with intentional and conceptual connections. Randomness and selection define the edges of digital manipulation, atmospherics and textures. Distant synths and field recordings echo, transform and expand. Intricate details enter the headspace while sounds sketch a new landscape. As in poetics the variation of microstructures and artistic vision are both beautiful and isolated. Through deliberate and detailed production, the album calls forth a defined sense of place. Intentionally random sonic exploration has always been about transforming pure chance into something decidedly different. Without sound there can be no silence. VIDEO: Everything Is Appearing On Its Own Pour Un Moment Damage Control https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6251a97d0455065f4dfef21f/32456d32-2d01-4d37-bb8f-2d22a6185140/Listening+Pearls+42+Main+Art.jpg Home - Listening Pearls Radio Show 42: Sunday March 29th Listening Pearls is my monthly radio show, broadcasting direct from the revolutionary arts facility high in the French Pyrenees. Featuring new and upcoming ambient, electronic, experimental, modern classical and minimal music releases. The March 1st Show is now playing on MIXCLOUD. The next LIVE Listening Pearls show will be on Sunday March 1st. 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