Munk

Since Jesper Munk's debut album in 2013 the German singer-songwriter has made a name for himself as multi-instrumentalist , playing music that ranges from Blues and Soul to heartfelt Pop and indulging Jazz, all this with a very unique, post-Punk edge.

There's really no other place like San Diego. The weather's balmy all year, there's 70 miles of the finest coastline California has to offer, it has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the US and - most importantly - it's currently THE epicenter for heavy psychedelic rock. Bands such as Earthless, Astra and Radio Moscow have paved the way for an astounding number of bands, creating a tight knit community of musicians. On this session Denmark's Jonas Munk (Causa Sui) joins forces with San Diego native Brian Ellis (who's not only a prime mover in the psychedelic scene, but has also been active in California's jazz and funk circuits for several years), and an assemblage of prime musicians from the area, including members of Astra, Psicomagia, Monarch, Radio Moscow and Sacri Monti.

London-based producer Ulrich Schnauss and Danish guitarist and producer Jonas Munk have both unfolded their unique visions of electronic music over the past two decades, and they have been collaborating since the mid-2000s. Eight Fragments Of An Illusion is their first album in over four years, their third overall. The latest effort is ambient and introspective in nature, but with a kinetic, polyrhythmic energy pushing it forward. There's a floating quality to Ulrich's synthesizer washes and Munk's guitar patterns, yet the eight tracks are anchored by pulse and compositional direction. The duo brings their individual strengths to the table, yet the music transcends any of their previous work conceptually. There are echoes of blissed-out new age music and kosmische from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as traces of shoegaze-era abstraction and leftfield electronica. But ultimately there's no off-the-rack category that fits it. It exists in its own rarefied space.

The newest collaboration between Ulrich Schnauss and Jonas Munk, titled simply Passage, is a heady mix of intellectual ambient and euphoric electronic. You get Schnauss’ synths layered with Munk’s liquid guitar lines, sometimes with drum programming and sometimes on their own. The result is a complex and engaging record that offers the best both musicians have to offer.
If you’re at all familiar with Ulrich Schnauss and Jonas Munk, then you should know this isn’t just another in a long line of electronic records…