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.

Recorded in Connecticut 2023
Music composed & constructed by Jeff Düngfelder
Mixed & Mastered at the Hopmeadow Studio, Weatogue, Connecticut
Design by Jeff Düngfelder

Ümlaut

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 with the world of shadows and colours. Allowing for infinite possible interpretations, he lets the listener’s imagination fill in the blanks between the grainy textural sounds with elements of ambient, musique concrète and noise. Combining spaciousness with a sense of intimacy introduces a musical language of experimental ambience. His memory recordings expose the complex relationship between music and silence.