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CD
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VISTA 008CD
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III: Chroma/Contour is the third album from Billow Observatory, the collaborative project of Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual, Ulrich Schnauss collaborator, and more) and Michigan native Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull). The album's nine tracks eschew the pulse and rhythm that defined the duo's previous effort -- II: Plains/Patterns (VISTA 002CD/LP, 2017) -- in favor of sparse melodic possibilities and a more abstract palette of sounds. Chroma/Contour suggests looking both 20 years forward and twenty years back, while forgetting the present altogether. Much of the album plays out as a study in minimalism: the texture and color of each sound is being explored in miniscule detail, with enough space in the sound field to allow each sonic constituent to breathe fully. There's a conceptual dimension to several tracks on the album, with guitars, analog synths and voices being mangled by samplers, computer software, and a broken dictaphone into pure abstraction. But simultaneously there's a melodic undercurrent, revealing a deeply emotional aspect of the music. Tracks such as "Color In The Six", "Iris", and "Soft Logic" convey a melancholic sense of awe, a profoundly calming glimpse of the sublime. As with the best ambient music, the power of these nine pieces lies in their open-endedness and suggestive potential. Rather than imposing on the listener and presenting a flawless, fully-formed aural landscape, the music creates an evocative space for the listener to explore and expand in. RIYL: Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, Stars Of The Lid, Slowdive's Pygmalion (1995), Brian Eno.
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LP
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VISTA 008LP
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LP version. Blue vinyl. III: Chroma/Contour is the third album from Billow Observatory, the collaborative project of Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual, Ulrich Schnauss collaborator, and more) and Michigan native Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull). The album's nine tracks eschew the pulse and rhythm that defined the duo's previous effort -- II: Plains/Patterns (VISTA 002CD/LP, 2017) -- in favor of sparse melodic possibilities and a more abstract palette of sounds. Chroma/Contour suggests looking both 20 years forward and twenty years back, while forgetting the present altogether. Much of the album plays out as a study in minimalism: the texture and color of each sound is being explored in miniscule detail, with enough space in the sound field to allow each sonic constituent to breathe fully. There's a conceptual dimension to several tracks on the album, with guitars, analog synths and voices being mangled by samplers, computer software, and a broken dictaphone into pure abstraction. But simultaneously there's a melodic undercurrent, revealing a deeply emotional aspect of the music. Tracks such as "Color In The Six", "Iris", and "Soft Logic" convey a melancholic sense of awe, a profoundly calming glimpse of the sublime. As with the best ambient music, the power of these nine pieces lies in their open-endedness and suggestive potential. Rather than imposing on the listener and presenting a flawless, fully-formed aural landscape, the music creates an evocative space for the listener to explore and expand in. RIYL: Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, Stars Of The Lid, Slowdive's Pygmalion (1995), Brian Eno.
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CD
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VISTA 002CD
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Billow Observatory is the trans-Atlantic duo consisting of Detroit's Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual). II: Plains/Patterns departs from their self-titled debut's (2012) amorphous ambient haze with a more rigid, albeit subtle, underpinning of rhythm and pulse. 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. 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. "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. For ambient aficionados, II: Plains/Patterns is a gorgeous sounding full-length not to be missed.
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LP
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VISTA 002LP
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LP version. Milky transparent vinyl. Edition of 300. Includes download code. Billow Observatory is the trans-Atlantic duo consisting of Detroit's Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual). II: Plains/Patterns departs from their self-titled debut's (2012) amorphous ambient haze with a more rigid, albeit subtle, underpinning of rhythm and pulse. 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. 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. "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. For ambient aficionados, II: Plains/Patterns is a gorgeous sounding full-length not to be missed.
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