a humming sum

I wouldn’t be here without music.

‘a humming sum’ evokes the underlying resonance of who I am, everything that has made me.

I try to capture that with sound and time.

Jacob Dysinger developed an early connection to telling stories, a passion that originally led them down the path of cinematography.

Music was always there, often even more present than filmmaking, but it always felt out of reach.

At 19, a shift in focus brought them into the world of music production, where they merged their creativity for visual storytelling with a talent for crafting atmospheric, genre-blending soundscapes. Jacob takes their film-editing brain, all those years of thinking about cuts and fades and how one image flows into the next, and applies it to sound. The result is music that moves like water, or soup, or something like that.

Jacob makes sound, unconsciously, necessarily, and with a sort of desperation.

Sometimes ugly and abrasive, sometimes beautiful and reassuring. They chose to call themself 'a humming sum.' This is everything they are.

October 2023, my grandfather passed, it still weighs heavy on me. The few months we spent together in Ecuador, his home, we understood that we were very alike. The good and the bad. This track aims to evoke that.

riobamba y mi abuelito

Originally a simple idea on guitar that I had been playing for years, this formed into one of my most celebrated tracks, not because I produced another 10 or 15 layers but because I let the guitar shine.

the wind off the water

One of the oldest tracks in my discography. This resulted from the confusion and explosive nature of my breakup. No lyrics like a normal love song, just a sea of keyboards, glitchy drums, and guitar solos.

andromyda

A rejected submission to the Portland Folk Festival. I’m very thankful for that deadline because I only had 3 hours to record and produce this track. No time to overthink. No time to keep it for myself.

back on the bike

I feel blessed by the pianos people are giving away in Portland. I was able to find a beautiful 1958 Mason and Hamlin for next to nothing. A gift for my mom, but also for me. The family piano rings true. Recorded one summer afternoon in the living room and given some extra flavor with tape echo and reverb.

piano for mom

Recorded in 2019 at the community music center practice rooms in Southeast Portland, Oregon. You can hear some of the other students practicing in the background, offering some dissonance to my piece, I think it brings it alive.

eucalyptus

Live and improvised in my basement studio on a cold winter morning. Submission to the NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2025

wrong pair after all (live)

Many fun experiments in this track thanks to the odd drums of my good friend Mahogany Temper. I’ve heard it described as a marriage of Radiohead and Explosions In The Sky.

seven echo five

Another old track brought to life in the past year. Strange rhythms married with familiar and comforting tones of piano and guitar. One of my strongest melodies to date.

ancient things i’ve come to know

I suppose I chose to call this track old man because of my pitched-down vocals in the beginning. Also, because of the dissonant structure. The fear of growing old and losing function. Particularly proud of the textures in this track, e-bow and distorted guitars into a bass-driven trip-hop passage.