Manual - Azure Vista

 The most popular of all Manual records. Azure Vista was Darla's 2005 best seller. It has been three years since Jonas Munk's last solo album, the classic, Ascend. Jonas has been quite busy though, not only has he been occupied with perfecting the sound he gave birth to in his late teens. He has also released a number of collaborative efforts: the celestial Into Forever in 2003 with New York's Icebreaker International, the almost completely overlooked old school ambient masterpiece The North Shore with longtime friend and Limp bandmate Jess Kahr, and most recently the sublime psych-hip-hop-dream-pop epic Golden Sun with Syntaks aka Jakob Skøtt, also a friend and bandmate. While these collaborations can be considered explorations of the outer aspects of the Manual sound, Jonas now returns with an album that, in his own words "constitutes the core of the Manual sound". In some way Azure Vista emerges from the same place as Ascend, where layers of cascading guitars, swirling synths and old school drum machine sounds rose adventurous compositions to dizzying heights. But with Azure Vista Jonas' music reaches new, almost religious, heights. As if it has come to it's logical conclusion - reaching it's full bloom. Azure Vista’s foundation is built on Jonas' trademark songwriting that, while being highly complex and always moving in surprising and unpredictable ways, still maintains a refreshing pop feel and an undeniable flow that makes it seem like the most natural thing in the world. But whereas Jonas' music has always been epic this new album is epic in a way that almost completely redefines the word. Jonas' songwriting has been taken to the extreme - but so has every other aspect of his music. The sound on Azure Vista is BIG. Not just big like Cocteau Twins or Slowdive, but occasionally BIG like Van Halen, in scale, not sound, or Simple Minds, very much in both scale and sound. Numerous layers of dreamy guitars blaze back and forth in the mix like shimmering waves rolling in on Californian shores, and countless other sounds, both deriving from electronic and organic sources, saturates the enormous sonic picture: bells, female vocals, old school drum machine sounds, field recordings and majestic synths all play a part in the sonic palette Jonas used in constructing these six sonic tales of summer ambrosia. In Jonas' world there's no line between dream pop and stadium rock, between new romantic and ambient, between shoegazer and modern electronica. This is music that neither fits with any of the current trends, nor falls into category with the many retro-fetishist pranksters out there. These glorious pieces display a true love for the music Jonas grew up with while, most importantly, using those influences to create something distinctly new and timeless. Music this compositional, narrative, and explosive is unheard of in the world of electronic music where Manual resides. Fans of The Cure, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Simple Minds and Japan will love this. But there really are no clear reference points for music this unique. Essential summer listening.

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