Reviews

Monolith CocktailDrawn together and what proves to be a deeply intuitive union for the Audiobulb label, the Buenos Aires-born but NY/Hudson resident Michel Mazza (the OdNu of that partnership) and the US, northern Connecticut countryside dweller Jeff Düngfelder (Ümlaut) form a bond on their reductive process of an album, Abandoned Spaces.

The spaces in that title alongside reference prompts, inspirations motivated by the Japanese term for ‘continuous improvement’, “Kaizen”, and the procrastinated state of weakness of self-will known as the “Akrasia Effect”, are subtly and dreamily wrapped up in a gentle blanket of recollection. The lingering traces of humanity, nature and the cerebral reverberate or attentively sparkle and tinkle as wave after wave of drifty and pristine bulb-like guitar notes hover or linger, and passing drums repetitively add a semblance of rhythm and an empirical and evanescent beat.

The word ‘meticulous’ is used, and that would be right. For this is such a sophisticated collaboration and a near amorphous blending of influences, inspirations and styles: for instance, you can hear an air of Federico Balducci and Myles Cochran in the languorous guitar sculpting and threading, and an essence of jazz on the brushed and sifting, enervated hi-hat pumping drum parts. On the hallucinatory title-track itself there’s a strange touch of Byzantine Velvet Underground, Ash Ra Tempel and Floyd, and on the almost shapeless airy and trance-y ‘Unforeseen Scenes’ a passing influence of Mythos and the progressive – there’s also the first introduction of what sound like hand drums, perhaps congas being both rhythmically padded and in a less, almost non-musical way, flat-handily knocked.    

Tracks are given plenty of time to breathe and resonate, to unfurl spells and to open up primal, mirage-like and psyche-concocted soundscapes from the synthesized and played. And although this fits in the ambient electronic fields of demarcation, Abandoned Spaces is so much more – later on in the second half of the eight-track album, the duo express more rhythmic stirrings and even some harsher (though we are not talking caustic, coarse or industrial) elements of mystery, inquiry and uncertainty. Here’s hoping OdNu + Ümlaut continue this collaboration, as this refined partnership proves a winning formula.

Original > HERE

Anxious MagazineAbandoned Spaces combines the unique sounds, skills and approaches of both artists to creating music, creating an album full of otherworldly textures and melodies. Using a reductive approach to composition but with great attention to detail, Mazza and Düngfelder create jazzy vignettes that flow through heavily processed electric guitars, bass and drum parts that weave into an ambient landscape of humming micro sounds and ephemeral melodies. The songs flow into one another like water, giving the listening a devotional feel. In the truest sense of the word, Abandoned Spaces is a sound poem. Combining seemingly disparate musical genres, it is an album of impeccable sonic design and an impossible to classify style.

Original > HERE

African PaperOn February 10th, Audiobulb will release an extensive joint work by the two American producers and composers Michel Mazza (OdNu) and Jeff Düngfelder (Ümlaut), in which Mazza contributed guitar, electronics and effects and his colleague also contributed electronics and sound effects as well as the Artwork was responsible. In the eight atmospherically expressive pieces on “Abandoned Spaces”, the two musicians, who moved from New York City to the surrounding area, merge their respective creative ideas and inclinations into an inextricable unity, in which ambient panoramas with reminiscences deep into the history of electronic avant-garde music, somnambulistic Jazz guitars - sometimes bordering on unrecognizable - and corresponding bars and various unheard of events give rise to a completely new style, which the label rightly describes as more than the mere sum of its parts. With their own unique characteristics, the individual tracks reveal very different variations of what abandonment of spaces and places can sound like. “Abandoned Scenes”, one of the pieces that can already be streamed, would be our recommendation.

Original > HERE

Nieuwe NotenAs mentioned, we hear Ümlaut on 'Abandoned Spaces' together with OdNu. The sound here is less experimental and the pieces sound more coherent. This makes this album the most deserving of the ambient designation of the three albums that are central here. This also makes it a more melodic album, although both musicians choose to combine this with the necessary variety. And OdNu adds the guitar, which can be clearly heard in 'Unforseen Scenes', beautifully mixed with rhythmic percussion sounds. And those sound combinations in the title piece 'Abandoned Spaces' are wonderfully beautiful. And special how, on the one hand, the tension regularly rises, while on the other hand we are surprised with almost classical guitar sounds. Something we also hear beautifully in 'Clear Distinction' and 'Kaizen'. 'The Akrasia Effect' is also worth seeing, because of its melodic content, but certainly also because of the futuristic effects that the musicians put into this piece. An atmosphere that we also find in the closing 'A Wishing Choice'.

Original > HERE