On 4 April 2025, Unter Null came back with “Coming Up To Breathe”, a dark electro single that Alfa Matrix issued on Bandcamp, where listeners could name their own price, and that also streams via Spotify and similar services. The American musician behind the project, Erica Dunham, has now marked its first anniversary with a statement of her own.
Christopher Lee Trueman directed the official video for the song, which is embedded below.
“Coming Up To Breathe” is available now on the Alfa Matrix store and can also be heard on Bandcamp. The follow-up release, the “You Made A Monster” EP, is in the store as well.
Dunham looks back
In her anniversary note on Facebook, Dunham described the single as the first crack in her realisation that she could write again, the moment the floodgates opened. She added that its lyrics ended up expressing what she had been unable to put into words back then, and that she wrote it out of necessity while working through her return. The song ended a silence of more than ten years for the Unter Null name.
A hint of what’s next
Alfa Matrix’s next step was the “You Made A Monster” EP, pairing the original track with reworks from Leaether Strip, C-Lekktor and Frontal Boundary. Dunham’s message also points to further music: “I’m still here and still breathing,” she wrote, adding that she has surprises in store.
About Unter Null
Erica Dunham, an American musician, set up Unter Null as a solo vehicle in Seattle in 1998. The sound started out as power noise and abrasive electronics, and by the early 2000s, after self-released recordings and live dates, it had moved into aggrotech and dark elektro territory.
Its first album, “The Failure Epiphany”, was released by Alfa Matrix in 2005 (and reissued later with bonus material), once clubs had picked up “Your Nightmare” and “Sick Fuck”. Dunham took the project on the road in both America and Europe during 2005 and 2006.
On 25 December 2008 a fire at Dunham’s home and studio destroyed her recording gear and put work in progress at risk. The files were recovered, and “Moving On” appeared on Alfa Matrix in 2010, including expanded and international editions. After a stretch in Hamburg, Germany, Dunham’s activity moved back to the American Pacific Northwest, where occasional releases and remixes continued through the 2010s alongside Stray, a more atmospheric side project.
Fresh studio material arrived via Alfa Matrix in 2025: first the single (4 April), then the EP (25 July), which is distributed digitally through Bandcamp and other platforms. Dunham also took part in remixes and collaborations that year, including work linked to Frontal Boundary. More coverage is in the Unter Null archive.