Jonas Munk Returns to Manual After Fifteen-Year Hiatus, Reopens Billow Observatory with New EP

Fifteen years is a long silence for a project that once earned comparisons few electronic artists receive. Jonas Munk has now ended that silence. True Bypass, his first Manual album since 2012’s Awash, arrives on Darla Records with a clear sense of return—not to an exact sound, but to a working method.

The early Manual records, released through Morr Music at the turn of the century, stitched together hazy synth lines, shoegaze guitar, and sharply defined beats. The formula pulled from a specific set of coordinates—Eno, Aphex Twin, Slowdive, Seefeel—but it cohered into something distinct enough to earn lasting critical attention. True Bypass reaches back toward that blend without treating it as a museum piece. Munk’s use of vintage synthesizers and hardware keeps the sound warm and textured, but the structures feel lived-in rather than nostalgic.

Alongside this return, Munk and Michigan-based guitarist Jason Kolb have resumed their work as Billow Observatory. Their new EP, Resina, follows last year’s The Glass Curtain and continues the duo’s gradual shift away from the beatless drift of their 2012 debut. What began as a project for weightless ambient clouds has, over several releases, absorbed pulse and form without losing its essential restraint. Resina stays in that mode—spacious, deliberate, never busy.

Two releases, two logics. One returns to a personal catalog that never quite fit its era. The other moves further into one defined by patience and slow evolution. Neither announces anything loudly. Both reward attention.