Manual – Issa

Drowned In Light Label: Make Mine Music Darla Records Released: 2010 Manual, aka Jonas Munk, is a producer from Odense, Denmark specializing in a unique brand of warm, organic music that fuses elements of new and old, electronic and hand-played, analogue and digital. He made his debut 10 years ago with an EP on Hobby Industries, followed by a handful of releases on Morr Music, both as Manual and with Icebreaker International, as well as his band Limp. Later, Munk signed with Darla and expanded his work into the area of minimalist ambient music while still perfecting the original Manual sound. While completely unknown in his native Denmark, Munk is considered an influential artist in the circles of dream pop and electronica, and he has toured all over the world, and collaborated with artists including Ulrich Schnauss, Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), Auburn Lull and, perhaps more surprisingly, members of Tortoise and Sunburned Hand of the Man. He has also scored a number of documentary films and undertaken production work for other bands and artists. Aside from collaborations, two minimalist ambient albums and a rarities collection from 2007, Drowned in Light is the first Manual album in five years. Manual’s style has been described as “one of the most recognisable in electronica”. At the core of this lies an ongoing desire to fuse electronic music with the structures and compositional elements of rock and pop and an insistence that electronica can be fresh and innovative …