Reviews

Igloo MagazineAudiobulb Records has been quietly championing longform ambient and experimental electronic music since 2003. The Sheffield-based label, run by David Newman, has built a catalog around patience and detail — artists who work in microsound, electro-acoustic textures, and extended compositions that unfold slowly. Metamorphoses, a 60-minute continuous piece by OdNu + Ümlaut, fits squarely within that tradition. The label’s roster has always leaned toward artists who embrace restraint and allow sound to breathe, and this collaboration between Michel Mazza (OdNu) and Jeff Düngfelder (Ümlaut) is no exception.

Mazza and Düngfelder met through Audiobulb. Both spent years in New York City before relocating to the countryside upstate — Mazza to Hudson, Düngfelder to northern Connecticut. Their first collaboration, Abandoned Spaces (2024), merged heavily processed guitars with jazzy vignettes and ambient landscapes. Their second, Mitochondria Johatsu (2025), pushed further into abstraction. Metamorphoses is their third, and it’s structurally different. Where the previous albums unfolded in discrete tracks, this one is a single, unbroken arc. The press notes describe it as a transformation rather than a dialogue, and that’s accurate. Düngfelder laid down a foundation of tape loops and electronics, and Mazza responded with guitar and effects. The distinction between origin and response disappears entirely.

Hearing this as a whole is worth multiple listens. It doesn’t sound like improvisation to me, but rather a carefully structured piece built from interlocking instrumentation, field recordings, and ambient textures. There aren’t solid melodies in the traditional sense, but melodic moments surface throughout — small gems that emerge and recede. The piece builds off melodic scales rather than hooks, which is how both artists tend to work. Mazza‘s background in film scoring and sound design is evident here. His solo work, like Expansive Nothingness and My Own Island, relies on processed guitar, midi-triggered synths, and field recordings to create cinematic, layered soundscapes. Düngfelder‘s approach is more reductive. His Black Square album used only synthesizers and tape loops, stripping sound down to its most essential textures. That minimalism is present here, but softened by Mazza‘s melodic touches.

The opening (0:00-2:45) sets the tone with water sounds and clicks. A subtle guitar riff loops underneath, accompanied by synth rolls that complement the rhythm without forming a solid melody. It’s staying within a melodic scale, which is how most of this piece operates. By the 4:30 mark, the guitar melody has room to breathe, backed by atmospheric pads that feel dreamlike. At 6:00, a beat enters — not glitched, just a very subtle tap rhythm that fades away before warbling synths and piano take over. There’s also what sounds like flute instrumentation here. Mazza has used clarinet and other wind instruments in past work, often heavily processed to the point where they’re barely recognizable. Düngfelder, for his part, has a history of folding birdsong and environmental recordings into his tape loops, blurring the line between organic and electronic.

This is something Audiobulb is known for; field recordings integrated into the sound design in a way that feels intentional rather than decorative. ~ J. Batista

By the 9:00 mark, the piece shifts. If this were tracklisted, this would feel like the third track. The same sonic palette, but darker and more mysterious. The pads here are crucial, they keep you in the zone without demanding attention. Audiobulb has always been strategic about drone music. The label’s ethos centers on the interface between the electronic and natural world, and drone provides the connective tissue for that exploration. Artists like Tomotsugu Nakamura and Monty Adkins, both on the Audiobulb roster, use drone as a foundational element rather than a backdrop. It’s structural, not decorative. That’s the case here. The piece is meant to breathe for a while, and it does.

At the 14:00 mark, another segment enters with a unique arp melody and a subtle drum beat that slowly fades. This seems to be a common technique throughout the 60 minutes, drums are introduced just enough to be felt, then pulled back. It’s like they don’t want the listener to focus on the rhythm. They just want you to hear it, register it, and let it fade.

 

A cavernous feel ::

The 16:00-19:00 section feels like an interlude. A repeated melody loops while an atmospheric pad backs it. It’s not hypnotizing, just subtle. By 21:30, reverse snare sounds enter alongside a ringing piano riff in the background, backed by a dronish piano that plays through with little electronic blips and nuances all the way to the 25:00 mark. Then a new melody enters, very happy and dreamlike. This is the first real peak of the piece, though it’s still restrained. At 26:00, a field recording comes in, and it’s beautiful. There’s almost a dying telephone jingle looping as there’s rustling in the mix. Great ASMR moment, way better than what you get on YouTube. But seriously, this is something Audiobulb is known for; field recordings integrated into the sound design in a way that feels intentional rather than decorative. At 27:00, a dark melody enters with a flanged harp for two minutes before another shift at 28:00. There’s a lot happening in the transitions, but the use of recycled sounds keeps the listener engaged. Mazza does this in his solo work too — My Own Islandis built around looping leitmotifs that travel through ambient landscapes and dub-infused passages, constantly recontextualizing the same melodic fragments.

By the 34:00 mark, guitars enter again with a backing pad, some flutes that ring out, and reverb-heavy sfx. The reverb is strongly applied here, which gives the section a cavernous feel. At 36:55, the tone shifts again with the guitars, and a subtle atmospheric pad enters that’s very pleasing. By 40:00, drums start to slowly roll in, hi-hats in rhythm — just before another happy melody appears. From here to the 45:00 mark, the piece feels different. Nothing sounds the same as before, but it’s a beautiful little section they’ve created. At 45:45, they’re playing with guitar sfx, adding a rolling sound that gives the guitar a lo-fi quality with delayed tails. It’s quite beautiful, actually.

At the 50:00 mark, dripping water is introduced, and it feels intentional. Water sounds were introduced at the beginning, and they’re closing this audio segment with water as well. This one is more subtle. The guitar melodies and electronic blips and fuzz that get introduced here aren’t melodic, it’s more noise and field recording. A good interlude. There’s a short ambient piece at the 53:00 mark that lasts just a minute, then shifts to a different tone. The field recording of the water turns to fuzz and fades out while they reintroduce a fading guitar riff playing different notes. An atmospheric loop comes in from 55:00 to the end. Both artists excel at this — Düngfelder‘s Musique de Film III is built entirely around looping field recordings and tape manipulations, and Mazza‘s Time Is A Place was recorded during sleepless nights, improvising guitar loops until 4am. That patience and willingness to let sound sit and evolve is what makes this collaboration work. The final stretch is a droning piece of guitar riffs and bells. The pieces feel essential for the close, and they end with a tremolo effect on the pads. They introduce water and fuzz at the very end, bookending the piece.

Metamorphoses is patient music. It doesn’t demand your attention, but it rewards it. For a label like Audiobulb, which has spent over two decades curating work that exists at the intersection of the electronic and the organic, this feels like a natural fit. Mazza and Düngfelder have found a shared language here, one where origin and response blur, where sound is continuously reshaped and reborn.

Original review > HERE

Chain D.L.K.Metamorphosis is usually presented as a rather dramatic business: caterpillars become butterflies, gods turn into animals, and unfortunate mortals discover that offending the wrong deity can have consequences considerably worse than a parking ticket. For Michel Mazza and Jeff Düngfelder, however, transformation is a quieter, more gradual affair. Their third collaboration as OdNu + Ümlaut, "Metamorphoses", takes the form of a single sixty-minute composition in which sounds continually change their function, identity and surroundings. A guitar phrase becomes a distant recollection; a rhythmic figure briefly suggests a more conventional musical structure before dissolving; electronic tones acquire an almost physical presence. The album's central idea is therefore expressed through its actual construction: music that does not merely describe change, but makes change its principal organising principle.

The partnership has developed considerably since "Abandoned Spaces" (2024), where the two musicians combined processed guitars, bass lines, drums and delicate electronic details in a collection of interconnected pieces. "Mitochondria Johatsu" (2025) extended their shared vocabulary, moving further into abstraction while retaining a melodic sensibility. Here, the individual tracks have disappeared altogether. The decision to work with one uninterrupted composition is significant because it changes the listener's relationship with the material. There are no titles to suggest a succession of separate destinations, no convenient pauses in which to check whether the washing machine has finished. Instead, the music establishes its own internal chronology, allowing ideas to return in altered circumstances and making transitions as important as the sounds themselves.

The creative process began with Düngfelder constructing a broad foundation from tape loops, electronics and processed material. Mazza then entered this environment with electric and MIDI guitar, clarinet, electronics and effects, responding to its possibilities through improvisation. The distinction between these two stages is not always perceptible in the finished recording, which is precisely the point. Rather than presenting a familiar arrangement of accompaniment and soloist, "Metamorphoses" creates a musical environment in which the contributions continually affect one another. The guitar does not simply decorate an electronic backdrop, while the loops do not function as a passive support system. Both become part of a circulating network of gestures, repetitions and transformations.

Their respective backgrounds make this approach particularly coherent. Buenos Aires-born Michel Mazza, who works as OdNu, has released more than twenty albums and developed a sound based on processed guitar, small recurring melodies, synthesised textures and field recordings. His parallel work in film editing, sound design and music composition has clearly informed his attention to atmosphere and the cinematic potential of apparently modest musical details. Jeff Düngfelder's Ümlaut project is more closely associated with minimal electroacoustic composition, tape manipulation, field recordings and the relationship between silence and sound. His work often treats environmental material as something to be recollected and rearranged rather than merely documented. Their shared experience of New York City, followed by their relocation to the countryside north of the metropolis, also provides an interesting biographical backdrop to music that frequently moves between organic impressions and electronically constructed spaces.

The opening establishes a vocabulary of small sounds and tentative melodic gestures. Water-like noises and clicks emerge alongside a recurring guitar figure, while soft electronic layers gradually establish a sense of depth. The music does not announce itself with the sort of grand introductory gesture that would make a film trailer editor particularly happy. Instead, it begins almost incidentally, as though the listener has entered a room where something has already been happening for some time. A restrained rhythmic pulse briefly appears, then gives way to warbling tones, piano-like sounds and fragments that hover somewhere between melody and texture. These elements are recognisable enough to provide orientation, but never remain in place for long.

One of the composition's most engaging qualities is its ability to introduce rhythm without allowing it to become the governing principle. Percussive sounds surface at intervals, sometimes suggesting a beat, sometimes merely adding a momentary sense of movement. They are subsequently withdrawn, leaving the melodic and textural material to reorganise itself. This gives the piece an unusual elasticity. It can momentarily approach ambient jazz, drift towards electroacoustic abstraction, or hint at a more conventional electronic composition, only to abandon the suggestion before it becomes a settled identity. There is a certain mischievousness in this behaviour. Just when the listener thinks they have worked out what kind of music they are hearing, the musicians quietly rearrange the furniture.

The central portion contains some of the album's most striking episodes. Around the twenty-minute mark, reversed percussion and resonant piano-like figures introduce a slightly more mysterious atmosphere. A brighter melodic passage subsequently emerges, offering one of the composition's rare moments of unmistakable uplift. It is followed by environmental sounds and rustling textures that are incorporated into the musical fabric rather than presented as documentary interruptions. Later, a darker melodic fragment and processed, harp-like tones alter the emotional temperature again. These changes are not organised around conventional climaxes. Instead, the music accumulates small moments of contrast, allowing one atmosphere to contaminate the next. The effect is less like watching a story unfold than observing a series of images whose edges have begun to overlap.

Mazza's melodic instincts are particularly important in preventing the composition from becoming an exercise in atmospheric suspension. Even when the guitar is heavily processed, its phrasing retains a sense of human gesture. Brief melodic figures appear, disappear and return in modified form, providing a thread that connects otherwise disparate sections. His clarinet contribution is absorbed into the broader electronic palette, adding another possible source of timbre without demanding attention as a featured instrument. Düngfelder, meanwhile, gives the composition much of its structural continuity through loops and recurring sonic details. His approach allows repetition to function as a form of memory: something recognisable returns, but its surroundings have changed sufficiently to make it feel different.

The album's later passages become more spacious and occasionally more rhythmic. Guitars reappear against sustained electronic layers, with wind-like tones and heavily reverberated sounds giving the music an almost architectural depth. Gradually introduced drums and hi-hats briefly create a more defined pulse, while another melodic passage brings a welcome degree of brightness. Yet the apparent stability never lasts. Guitar effects become rougher, delayed sounds trail away into the mix, and the environmental material gradually assumes greater importance. Water returns in the closing stretch, recalling the opening while avoiding the neatness of a perfectly symmetrical ending. The composition eventually settles into sustained tones, bells and fading electronic details, with its final gestures suggesting continuation rather than resolution.

There is a potential danger in music of this kind: the hour-long format can easily become an excuse for simply accumulating agreeable textures until the available storage space runs out. "Metamorphoses" largely avoids that trap because its changes are not merely ornamental. The recurring melodic material, subtle rhythmic interventions and carefully placed environmental sounds provide a sense of development, even when the music remains deliberately understated. It also benefits from the fact that both musicians have established individual practices capable of supporting this kind of extended collaboration. Their shared language is not based on erasing every difference, but on allowing those differences to become useful components of a larger process.

The album's title inevitably invites philosophical associations, but its transformation is not especially interested in grand declarations about the nature of existence. It is more convincing when considered at the level of sound itself. A melody changes meaning according to its surroundings; a recording of water can become percussion, atmosphere or memory; an electronic pulse can briefly resemble something organic. These transformations are modest, sometimes almost imperceptible, yet they alter the listener's sense of what is happening. The artwork by Düngfelder, with its overlapping translucent forms, offers a visual counterpart to this method without needing to illustrate every musical development.

"Metamorphoses" ultimately rewards attention through accumulation rather than spectacle. Its sixty minutes contain enough changes to prevent the experience from becoming static, but the musicians resist the temptation to make every new idea announce its arrival with a fanfare. This is music that understands the value of letting an idea become familiar before quietly changing its circumstances. There is no need for a caterpillar to explain the mechanics of its transformation, and Mazza and Düngfelder wisely avoid doing so. They simply allow the sounds to alter, multiply, recede and return, until the listener realises that the landscape encountered at the beginning has become something else. The process is patient, occasionally playful and quietly absorbing, with the added advantage that nobody needs to emerge from a chrysalis at the end.

Original review > HERE

African PaperAudiobulb RecordsApproximately two and a half years after their collaborative album “Abandoned Spaces,” OdNu and Ümlaut continue their partnership: Tomorrow, June 6th, a new digital release, “Metamorphoses,” will be released on Audiobulb. While the duo's earlier works consisted of individual pieces, “Metamorphoses” unfolds as a continuous, hour-long composition. The starting point was soundscapes created by Jeff Düngfelder using tape loops and electronics, which Michel Mazza further developed with electric guitar, clarinet, and additional electronic processing. 

The result, as the accompanying text aptly puts it, is a flowing, organic-sounding stream of ambient, drone and electroacoustic textures, in which the contributions of both musicians can hardly be separated. The liner notes explain the album's background as follows: “The genesis of the work reflects its essence. Jeff Düngfelder began by shaping a fundamental environment: a sprawling soundscape of tape loops, electronics, and shifting layers of processed sounds. This initial gesture was less a composition than a terrain—an atmosphere in constant motion, rich in space and possibilities. Into this vibrant field, Michel Mazza entered and responded intuitively—with electric guitar, electronics, and a deeply refined sense of form. His improvisations don't merely accumulate on top of the foundation but permeate it—bend, break, and reshape its contours—until the distinction between origin and response completely disappears. What emerges is a true synthesis: not a dialogue, but a transformation. The identities of both artists dissolve into a shared current in which sound is continually reshaped, reabsorbed, and reborn. Sonic textures blossom and ebb away like a breath; tones flicker.” At the edge of perception; melodic fragments surface briefly, only to slip back beneath the surface. The music possesses a quiet, almost gravitational attraction – drawing the listener in and fostering a state of awareness that is both meditative and fluid. Much like the album's artwork – where translucent forms overlap, merge, and evolve in gentle gradations of light and shadow – *Metamorphoses* exists in a state of constant flux. Nothing is fixed. Boundaries blur. Forms become gestures; gestures become space. Warmth and density give way to airiness and a state of suspension, only to coalesce again in new, unexpected configurations. The music moves as water moves – as the wind reshapes the surface of a landscape: subtle, persistent, unhurried, yet never still. In this sense, *Metamorphoses* is not merely a composition, but a process unfolding in real time. It invites The listener is not merely invited to follow it, but to inhabit it – to drift in its currents, to leave behind the points of reference of beginning and end, and to experience the sound as a living, ever-changing presence. It is the sound of transformation itself: gradual, inevitable, and of quiet depth.” (Audiobulb). The album will be released digitally with artwork by Jeff Düngfelder.

Original review > HERE

Editions VacheSo much happens over the lifespan of this longform album-the artists never dwell, and a seemingly endless current of ideas pours forth- the pieces wax and wane, weave and blend,- not only does it keep you engaged, but we were sad when it was over! This is the kind of work that makes you realize how far-reaching creative music can actually be! Most Highly recommended.