Carlos Dengler is a NYC-based composer, actor, writer, multi-instrumentalist musician, naturalist, avid backpacker and amateur nature photographer. 

Dengler was born in 1974 in Queens, New York, to a Colombian mother and a German father. He and his family lived in Queens until his early teens, after which they relocated to Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Dating back to his days at NYU, Dengler is a skilled club DJ. He used to spin new wave, obscure, and current music as a DJ on Theatrum Aethereum, a radio show at WNYU from 1997 to 1998 that was dedicated to ethereal, experimental and ambient music. 

As the original bassist and keyboardist of Interpol, Dengler was influential in the post-punk revivalist scene in NYC during the early ‘00s. Opting out of the rock scene in 2010, he returned to NYU and garnered an MFA in Acting, and began a writing career as a personal essayist. Later Dengler took an interest in film composition and scoring; his work in this medium includes the short film Golgotha, which he wrote, produced and scored, as well as My Friends Told Me About You (2008), in which he was a lead actor.

Carlos has performed in local and regional theaters like Lincoln Center Theater, Dorset Theater Festival and Fringe New York where he performed his one-person show Homo Sapiens Interruptus in 2016. He has published essays in the Mars Review of Books, n + 1 and in an anthology called New Jersey Fan Club on Rutgers University Press. Carlos directed his first short called Iowa in 2018, along with writing the screenplay, editing, scoring and performing as the lead. His debut album of New Age compositions called Aqueduct was released in 2022. He is a cofounder of and was the original bass player and keyboardist for the band Interpol and performed with the band until 2010. He was also a professional DJ in the 2000s during which time he performed at Coachella and Lollapalooza. He has a BA in Philosophy from the College of Arts and Sciences at New York University (1999) and he received his MFA in Acting from NYU Grad Acting in 2015. 

In 2022, Dengler released an EP with 4 tracks, ECOSPHERES, and an LP with 9 tracks, AQUEDUCT, both on his own label, Carlos Dengler Music. Dengler’s foray into New Age music comes as a natural progression from his Goth roots in the ‘90s, specifically the neoclassical variety of Goth popularized by Dead Can Dance. This experience dovetailed with a lot of exposure to dark ambient and some contemporary classical composers from Eastern Europe as well, the so-called “spiritual minimalists” like Arvo Pärt and Henryk Gorecki. Dengler began diving more deeply into these genres, discovering as well the “passive” textures of Brian Eno and then, a little later, artists like Patrick O’Hearn and David Darling, with their more “active” sounding New Age music. Dengler took interest in other “passive” styles of ambient composers such as Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Thom Brennan, Oophoi, Alio Die and Mathias Grassow.

Carlos Dengler’s music has been welcomed in the New Age community with enthusiastic reviews and support from Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END, NPR’s Tones & Drones Podcast with Jason Miller, added to SiriusXM Spa, OneWorld Music Radio, and others globally. His newest album, PRIVATE EARTH, releases on June 2.