UMAN’s Chaleur Humaine, the debut album from the French duo of musicians and siblings Danielle and Didier Jean, resurfaces for the first time since its original release in 1992. While history, both private and public, is scattered with creative relationships between siblings that simply “did not work,” UMAN’s story is uniquely different and defined by this bond, and a shared journey impressing footprints along an adventurous musical terrain.

Prior to Chaleur Humaine, Danielle and Didier recorded two albums of pop songs met mostly with ambivalence, inspiring them to escape the expectations of the French music industry and build their own studio in Orsay, a suburb south of Paris. Chaleur Humaine was a modus operandi for their new, liberated perspective and space: freedom to develop ideas independently; to cross-pollinate genres and abandon them altogether; to improvise and experiment in new musical configurations.

Within their recording sanctuary, Danielle and Didier embraced cutting edge consumer music technology to inform the album’s esoteric, textural characteristics. 

UMAN were driven by their own invention, performing with local and fringe artists, and ultimately at ease in their secluded musical world. Even as the music of UMAN ricochets off the walls of their safe haven in so many directions, the artists’ interplay of reference and abstraction of sound retains the intimacy of a wildly imaginative conversation between siblings. UMAN’s Chaleur Humaine will be made available again on Freedom To Spend on September 17, 2021, for the first time on vinyl and as CD and digital editions. On behalf of UMAN, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Greenpeace France.