Manual is one Jonas Munk from Denmark, a guitar whiz with a true love for the 4AD sound, bringing it up to date with Fennesz-style electronics. While it's been three years since his last proper relesae, the great and essentially essential Ascend, he has kept more than busy releasing three collaborations - one each with Icebreaker, Jess Kahr (also a member of Limp with Munk), and Syntaks (in Limp as well). Each of the three collaborations gave Munk a chance to try something new, taking a backseat to Icebreaker, blissing out with Kahr, and then playing with trip hop beats with Syntaks. Munk's latest, Azure Vista, is a true solo album, but just like the three collaborations, it gives him a chance to try something a little different.
Inspired by (and recorded during) a trip to California, the album is overtly sunny pop, which moves the music fully out of the avant Fennesz arena and more into the Cocteau Twins revitalism arena. In fact, some songs get so glowy, like the aptly titled "Neon Reverie," that the sound even reaches new wave like Simple Minds and John Hughes soundtracks. It's all related, mind you, lest you forget the Cocteau Twins were named after a Simple Minds song, but for those looking for Manual to return to his more tried and true experimental sounds, the music - like June's 5 o'clock sunlight after an afternoon in a dark office - takes a little getting used to.
Those willing to get adjusted, and those more predisposed to dazzle and dalliance, will find plenty of beauty both in the album's brightly colored patches of melody as well as its more pastoral stretches. Even the song titles sound pastoral - the album opening up with "Clear Skies Above the Coastline Cathedral" which takes a Low-worthy 4/4 beat, gently drifting along with a bed of ethereal keyboards and a beat-keeping guitar strum. A solitary, meditative guitar bridge brings us closer to the shoreline, then the keyboard rushes up, filling the space like the bright blue expanse that inspired it.
Songs like "Neon Reverie" and "Summer of Freedom" are more over-the top, though, more and more, I have found myself enjoying them. "Summer of Freedom" starts off low-key with a gentle melody hiding beneath of jetstream of feedback fumes. Just as soon as the song approaches a shoegaze wall of sound, it starts to fade away, breaking down into bluesy guitar squiggles floating amongst the pitter pat of 80s-style drum machine. Eventually, the guitar plays a very triumpant riff as a syrupy tubular bells-style keyboard melody-fragment carries the song to the end.
While the album took a little getting used to given my prejudices on what Manual should sound like, I've listened to it as much as anything the past few months (ITunes showing 20 listens, just as much as the Four Tet album I loved from the get-go). While it didn't wow or overwhelm me (and still doesn't, really), its soft, supple beauty is a welcome addition to days when it's sunny and nice outside and I'm obligated to remain inside.
