Billow Observatory

Ulrich Schnauss

Spacey synths and atmospheres. Ethereal synth melodies fill the vast space created by the delicate tonal backdrop, creating a sense of wonder towards the expansive nature of reality and the emptiness of the universe. Use this to bring about a feeling of connection with something bigger than oneself.

Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/2RWyCT2 (updated regularly)
YouTube mix: coming soon!
Submit your own: ambientologist@outlook.com

Music for Infinity

Billow _ Ambiant _ NI _

"Machine Gun Blues" by Social Distortion from the album 'Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes,' in stores now!

Social Distortion - Machine Gun Blues

Golden Lies

Armed and Stupid

I Quit

Pieces of Me

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

Meat Puppets - Plateau (Live On KEXP)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODVt3XQUG3Y

Meat Puppets - Plateau (Live On KEXP)

From the latest Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk collaboration, entitled "Passage", out now on Azure Vista Records!

Get it from: www.azurevistarecords.bandcamp.com

Passage

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: "Anywhere But Here"

II: Plains/Patterns

Nulstil

Pulsus

Kercheval

Corolla (Cass.' Corolla Epilogue)

Over several years, Guenter Schlienz has graced labels such as Constellation Tatsu, Sacred Phrases, S.I.N.K. CDs, SicSic, Preservation so we are very excited here at Rural Colours to be added to that list with his latest work Peace.

After noticing that several friends had begun to end emails marked 'Peace', Guenter Schlienz, ever full of questions, started to ponder on the meaning of the word in this context.  Around the same time he started to read Henry Miller's book 'The Collossus of Maroussi' and was intrigued by a couple of paragraphs devoted to exactly this question: what is "the meaning of peace". He came to the conclusion that there is much more to "peace" than just the absence of war.  The albums track titles are words by Henry Miller, and the work is Guenter's humble attempt to gather sounds and atmospheres around those lines.

Using modular synths combined with tape loops, analog and digital delays, vintage electronic organ and guitar, Schlienz works within a romantically inward looking framework, creating music that comes from deep within.  His compositions reflect themes of tenderness, alienation and homecoming and feature a range of guest musicians including Masako Kamikawa (piano on  'Reverberation of the Pandemonium') and Niko Lazarakopoulos (guitar on 'Faint Whispers') and even an anonymous busker from the streets of Stuttgart on 'Who Put the Demons There?'

inspired by henry miller's book "the collossus of maroussi". / "i never knew the meaning of peace until i arrived at epidaurus ".

Artwork by Katie English / This is rural colours 82
https://ruralcolours.bandcamp.com / vote for us

Guenter Schlienz / Peace (Snippets)

Auburn Lull: "Leylines"

date released 13.04.2018

made with ensoniq

- work of street artist  -RUN-

check paint  (disquiet0328)

First single off the new Jonas Munk solo album, out on Azure Vista Records early 2020! More to be revealed in January.

Happy Holidays!

Jonas Munk: "Resonance"

Jonas Munk: "Minimum Resistance" will be out on Azure Vista Records February 21st! Preorder here: https://jonasmunk.bandcamp.com/album/minimum-resistance

"Minimum Resistance is Jonas Munk's most abstract and minimalist album to date. Ten ambient pieces based on guitars – often processed into soft, slow billows of sound. There's a rare aesthetic clarity in these pieces, allowing each sonic component to breathe and resonate. Here Munk works with a restrained sonic palette and it's an album which demands patience from the listener. Yet, in its bold simplicity, it carries enough emotional weight to be deeply rewarding."

Jonas Munk: "Sabi"

Opening track from the self-titled collaboration album released on Pedigree Cuts in 2011.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ulrich-schnauss-jonas-munk/id445412902

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk - "Weightless memories"

Stareside

Wash Away The Dust

Red Morning

Danish/American/Ambient/Experimental

Boomkat's description (http://boomkat.com/vinyl/601376-billow-observatory-billow-observatory):

"Nearly a decade in the making, 'Observatory' features Jonas Munk (Manual) and Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) striving for ambient guitar perfection as Billow. Arguably, they've come close to achieving their practically impossible mission, conducting themselves with divine patience and deliberation across 15 achingly blissful scenes at once evoking the humbling beauty of the natural world and the yearning sublimity of more soporific states thanks to near-surgical application of software and hardware effects. Unless you're au fait with the likes of Fennesz or Stars Of The Lid, you might never tell that the guitar is at the heart of this record, yet beneath its phosphorescing, crepuscular drones and plangent sonorities the simple six string generates all the source material. So the world it inhabits is essentially that one between states, simulating a quietly vibrant ecology of sub-aquatic bass rumbles, washed out expanses of mid-range swirl and keening top end whose elusive colours seem to fade and coruscate in the low light. Lovely."

U.S. Pre-orders:  http://felte.bandcamp.com/album/billow-observatory



