Manual

 

Manual, a.k.a. 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, Jonas signed with Californian label Darla and expanded his work into the area of minimalist ambient music while still perfecting the original Manual sound on albums such as "Azure Vista" and "Golden Sun".

While completely unknown in his native Denmark, Jonas is considered an influential artist in the circles of dream pop and electronica, and he has toured the world and collaborated with artists including Ulrich Schnauss, Robin Guthrie, Auburn Lull and Tortoise. He has also scored a number of documentary films and undertaken production work for other artists - most recently for the bands Rumskib, Ecovillage and Dorias Baracca. 

His style has been described as "one of the most recognisable sounds in electronica", for better or for worse. At the core of the Manual project lies an ongoing desire to fuse electronic music with the structures and compositional elements of various kinds of rock and pop, and an insistence that electronica can be fresh and innovative without flowing with the latest trends.

Munk's music has been compared to the likes of The Durutti Column, Seefeel, Cocteau Twins, Harmonia, Air and Brian Eno, but his style remains truly unique.