Great collaboration again, awesome music !

Gorgeous music of two Icons of ethereal sounds

Passage was an album that was due big time, was totally addicted to the first Urich Schnauss & Jonas Munk collaboration from '11..i'm totally looking forward to going into this one. Just got it on iTunes.

@bulentalkan @NiklasIbach #DanReeder @ulrichschnauss #JonasMunk @DanThompsonDJ @djtalla2xlc @Maxdenoise @ronskispeed @HBeltagui_Music @shannonhurley @RazNitzan @DavidGravell @DRYMmusic  @Cathy_Burton

My Dream The Blues Azure Vista #1505

I first got turned on to the music of Jonas Munk thanks to the Pure Ambient playlist on Apple Music as it included a few tracks off of Jonas's Minimum Resistance album released on his fantastic Azure Vista label. After months of pestering him, I'm very excited to finally share this mixtape!

Enjoy,
Josh

Connect with Jonas Munk:
https://www.instagram.com/jonasmunksounds/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057377323014

Connect with Azure Vista:
@azurevistarecords
https://www.facebook.com/azurevistarecords
https://azurevistarecords.bandcamp.com/

Tracklist:
1. Gabor Szabo: ”Three King Fishers” [Skye Records]
2. Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions: ”Around My Smile” [Rhymes of an Hour Records]  4:38
3. The Sandals: ”Endless Summer” [Capitol Records]  8:31
4. The Durutti Column: ”Requiem Again” [London Music Stream Ltd.]  11:11
5. Piero Umiliani: ”Nostalgia (synth version)” [Right Tempo SNC]  15:04
6. Slowdive: ”All of  Us” [Sony BMG]  18:25
7. David Sylvian: ”Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples” [Virgin Records]  22:06
8. Landing: ”Feel, and the Seas Fill” [K Records]  24:12
9. Michael Rother: ”Fontana di Luna” [Groenland Records]  27:34
10. Iasos: ”Lueena Coast” [Inter-Dimensional Music]  34:00
11. Hiroshi Yoshimura: ”Creek” [Light In The Attic Records]  37:41
12. Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson: ”Rise From Your Wave” [Friends Of / Dead Oceans]  42:12
13. JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi: ”Mirages” [Prototyp Recording]  47:40
14. Ryuichi Sakamoto: ”Solari” [KAB America]  53:48

Connect with We Are Machine:
@wearemachinemusic
https://www.youtube.com/WeAreMachine
https://www.instagram.com/wearemachinemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/wearemachinemusic

We Are Machine - Afterhours 017 - Jonas Munk

Calque

Kiyosumi

I think the collaborative project by Zach Frizzell (zakè) and Damien Duque (City Of Dawn) first saw the light of day back in 2020 when these two ambient artists got together to release Wander on Frizzell's own Zakè Drone Recordings. The duo have also released music as Frizzell & Duque, appearing on these pages numerous times in the last few years, including the addition of Ossa, for the album I picked as one of the best of the year. Last year, Jonas Munk, aka Manual, picked up Agape for his Azure Vista Records, and I have subsequently highlighted the album in my Music For Bending Light And Stopping Time for Best of 2022. All of these opening words, with a brief journey through history, are only here to demonstrate how excited I am about their follow-up release on Azure (co-distributed by Frizzell's Past Inside The Present imprint for the US friends and followers). The title track, "Ash", which I am premiering for you today, is a perfect example of the unhurried, unfurling, and unpretentious ambience that blankets the senses when you need these sounds most. "Their focus offers up the steady ebb and flow of sound, cultivating a profound sense of meditative stasis and explorations of high-fidelity sound." This is the type of slow-evolving minimal music that you want to turn all the way up in volume so that each frequency permeates, saturates, and eradicates all the wrinkles and spikes in your jittery mind. Lovely textures on this one, folks, carefully curated by the mastering touch of James Bernard.

"The music the two create together reflects the expansive landscapes of their native Texas and Indiana. Slowly unfolding melodies that seem to rise like the sun from a Texas horizon and drones that resonate like leaves in an endless Indiana woodland. It's a sound that's both beautiful and slightly haunting – a sound that encompasses the listener and demands attention. This is music to get lost in."

TRACK PREMIERE : zakè & City of Dawn - Ash

Soliton

In Transit

Manual: "Azure Vista"

Preview of "Passage" - the second collborative effort from London-based synth wiz Ulrich Schnauss and Danish producer Jonas Munk!

The album will be out January 20, 2017 on CD and LP (limited to 500 copies) via Azure Vista Records, and digitally via Pedigree Cuts.

www.azurevistarecords.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/azurevistarecords

Info:

Following the release of ‘No Further Ahead Than Today’ last November Ulrich Schnauss (now a member of Tangerine Dream) wastes little time in bringing us the long awaited sequel to his 2011 eponymous collaboration with Jonas Munk.

There's a prismatic, multi-dimensional quality to these 11 tracks, most likely stemming from the fact that these two producers have each worked with a wide range of styles and musicians throughout their 15+ year careers: Ulrich cut his teeth as a drum and bass producer in Berlin, before releasing a string of highly influential neo-shoegaze records on labels such as Domino and City Centre Offices. Since moving to London in 2006 he's been a member of the bands Engineers and Longview, remixed many artists (from Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys to Mojave 3) and since 2013, been a member of legendary band Tangerine Dream. 

While Jonas initially became known to the electronica community via his Manual albums on Morr Music and Darla Records, he also has a career as a noted producer on the European psych scene, as well as working on film soundtracks and experimental minimalism.

Fans of the first album’s euphoric and blissful moments will find much to love here, but also themes that gradually unfurl into crisp, symphonic soundscapes. The album is perfectly titled - it certainly has the feel of a journey but not in a literal sense. It feels like an ‘emotional passage’ or one that plays out via a series of dreams.

Opener ‘Amaris’ has many of the Schnauss hallmarks that we’ve come to enjoy from his many shoegaze collaborations and Munk is the perfect foil for this side to his oeuvre - the track chimes and sways beautifully before one of his trademark melodies hits and leaves you breathless. Munk introduces a more progressive aspect to the release than previously heard by the pair on 'genau wie damals', which recalls several 70’s guitar based giants, though in 2016 this is somehow a natural diversion for a record bearing Ulrich’s name.
Mst’ is certainly one for those yearning for the open armed rush of the first album will surely embrace - 80’s guitars and electro drums set the scene for some of the most gorgeous sequencing and melodic synth work on the album. In truth though, there’s no shortage of highlights. The retro futurism of ‘Spellbreaker’ is awesomely addictive and modest standout ‘Caffeine blues’ combines tasteful guitar strokes with a standard of Berlin school sequencing that surely only a member of one of the scene’s key exponents could summon.

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: "Passage" preview

Niklas Ibach just released "The Blues ft. Dan Reeder (Radio Edit)"! 

Listen here: https://niklasibach.lnk.to/TheBluesFtDanReeder!RTST

The Blues

Niklas Ibach - The Blues Ft. Dan Reeder (Radio Edit)

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: "Passage" out now on CD/LP (via Azure Vista Records) and digital (via Pedigree Cuts)!

Order here: www.azurevistarecords.bandcamp.com

Info:

Following the release of ‘No Further Ahead Than Today’ last November Ulrich Schnauss (now a member of Tangerine Dream) wastes little time in bringing us the long awaited sequel to his 2011 eponymous collaboration with Jonas Munk.

There's a prismatic, multi-dimensional quality to these 11 tracks, most likely stemming from the fact that these two producers have each worked with a wide range of styles and musicians throughout their 15+ year careers: Ulrich cut his teeth as a drum and bass producer in Berlin, before releasing a string of highly influential neo-shoegaze records on labels such as Domino and City Centre Offices. Since moving to London in 2006 he's been a member of the bands Engineers and Longview, remixed many artists (from Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys to Mojave 3) and since 2013, been a member of legendary band Tangerine Dream.

While Jonas initially became known to the electronica community via his Manual albums on Morr Music and Darla Records, he also has a career as a noted producer on the European psych scene, as well as working on film soundtracks and experimental minimalism.

Fans of the first album’s euphoric and blissful moments will find much to love here, but also themes that gradually unfurl into crisp, symphonic soundscapes. The album is perfectly titled - it certainly has the feel of a journey but not in a literal sense. It feels like an ‘emotional passage’ or one that plays out via a series of dreams.

Opener ‘Amaris’ has many of the Schnauss hallmarks that we’ve come to enjoy from his many shoegaze collaborations and Munk is the perfect foil for this side to his oeuvre - the track chimes and sways beautifully before one of his trademark melodies hits and leaves you breathless. Munk introduces a more progressive aspect to the release than previously heard by the pair on 'genau wie damals', which recalls several 70’s guitar based giants, though in 2016 this is somehow a natural diversion for a record bearing Ulrich’s name.
Mst’ is certainly one for those yearning for the open armed rush of the first album will surely embrace - 80’s guitars and electro drums set the scene for some of the most gorgeous sequencing and melodic synth work on the album. In truth though, there’s no shortage of highlights. The retro futurism of ‘Spellbreaker’ is awesomely addictive and modest standout ‘Caffeine blues’ combines tasteful guitar strokes with a standard of Berlin school sequencing that surely only a member of one of the scene’s key exponents could summon.

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: "Ao Hinode"

First track from the new album, entitled "II: Plains/Patterns", out on Azure Vista Records March 31!

CD/DL/LP (vinyl limited to 300 copies!). Preorder here: https://billowobservatory.bandcamp.com/

Billow Observatory – the trans-atlantic duo consisting of Detroit's Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual) – are back with a follow-up to the their debut album from 2012. 

”II: Plains/Patterns” departs from the first LP’s amorphous ambient haze with a more rigid, albeit subtle, underpinning of rhythm and pulse. The duo’s obsession with “place and space” comes clearly into focus with an album that draws deeply from Munk and Kolb’s individual proximity to the geographically distant, but oddly similar, sounds of Germany and Michigan, past and present. 

 Traces of shoegaze, modern minimal electronica, and kosmische appear on every track, but are mutated into something mysterious and new. ”Pulsus”, for example, opens the album with a driving teutonic stutter and washes of serene guitar loops that are punctuated by bursts of filtered synth patterns; a combination that seamlessly bridges the gaps between disparate genres and periods of time. 

 Centerpiece, ”Plains”, expands the ambient formula into an inspired epic in three parts, where swells of processed guitars, distant voices and faint echoes of Detroit techno are weaved together to form a kaleidoscopic whole. And tracks such as ”Vex” and ”Plum” seem to pay as much homage to Slowdive and Eno's Harold Budd collaborations as to the modern minimalism from Cologne or Berlin.

Plains

New record, "II: Plains/Patterns", out March 31! CD, download and vinyl (limited to 300 copies). Order here:

https://azurevistarecords.bandcamp.com/

Billow Observatory – the trans-atlantic duo consisting of Detroit's Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual) – are back with a follow-up to the their debut album from 2012.

”II: Plains/Patterns” departs from the first LP’s amorphous ambient haze with a more rigid, albeit subtle, underpinning of rhythm and pulse. The duo’s obsession with “place and space” comes clearly into focus with an album that draws deeply from Munk and Kolb’s individual proximity to the geographically distant, but oddly similar, sounds of Germany and Michigan, past and present.

Traces of shoegaze, modern minimal electronica, and kosmische appear on every track, but are mutated into something mysterious and new. ”Pulsus”, for example, opens the album with a driving teutonic stutter and washes of serene guitar loops that are punctuated by bursts of filtered synth patterns; a combination that seamlessly bridges the gaps between disparate genres and periods of time.

Centerpiece, ”Plains”, expands the ambient formula into an inspired epic in three parts, where swells of processed guitars, distant voices and faint echoes of Detroit techno are weaved together to form a kaleidoscopic whole. And tracks such as ”Vex” and ”Plum” seem to pay as much homage to Slowdive and Eno's Harold Budd collaborations as to the modern minimalism from Cologne or Berlin.

II: Plains/Patterns 

Pulsus

From Causa Sui: "Live in Copenhagen" 3LP boxset/3CD out now on El Paraiso Records!

www.elparaisorecords.com

Causa Sui: "Mondo Buzzo" (Live in Copenhagen)

Taken from Billow Observatory's album III: Chroma/Contour on Azure Vista Records, out February 8.

Pre-order: https://billowobservatory.bandcamp.com/album/iii-chroma-contour-2

@azurevistarecords
@billow-observatory

III: Chroma/Contour

More exclusive music

Premiere: Billow Observatory - Soft Logic

Asteroid 2467

Asteroid 2467 (single version)

Afterglow

Azure Vista Records is an independently owned and operated label based in Odense, Denmark with a strong focus on blissed-out electronic sounds!

Wow, hadn't realised what a journey SoundCloud would take me on.  After many years of passive listening to music I've dieted on a variety of tastes. My appetite for new sounds is undiminished and SC provides plenty of food. I am not a musician and have only recently started to listen positively to the sounds. My early years began listening to music from ABC, The Beatles, The Carpenters Dire Straits Eagles Fleetwood Mac Genesis Elton John Led Zeppelin Gilbert O'Sullivan Rod Stewart Supertramp Tangerine Dream Vangelis The Who and many more.
If you can't spot a trend in my current likes it may be because it is diverse. I love listening to all my playlists which contain tracks that I like and if you like any of the music you must thank the artists not me.

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: "Passage" preview

Azure Vista Records

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