FLT-003 Billow Observatory - Billow Observatory

Billow Observatory
S/T | FLT-003

The self-titled debut album from Billow Observatory — the duo comprising Danish producer Jonas Munk, aka Manual, and Auburn Lull guitarist Jason Kolb — is a record that has been nearly a decade in the making, and a record that unfolds at a stately, unhurried pace, its subtleties revealing themselves with repeated listening. Its sound reflects its creators' diverse backgrounds — Kolb's ambient guitar work, along with Munk's experience in film music and the minutiae of sound engineering — as well as their patience and devotion to their craft. 

The genesis of Billow Observatory came in summer 2004, when Munk was first introduced to Kolb's work with Auburn Lull. A split EP between Manual and Auburn Lull was mooted, and although this didn't materialize, the duo began exchanging ideas and audio files, finally meeting in person during 2007 when they played a show together in Michigan.

As time passed, their work began to coalesce into what would become Billow Observatory — as Munk says, "We never expected to be working on material for six years, but something very exciting took shape as soon as we started working together and we had to follow that idea to the end." The process of following that idea was slow and deliberate, one that required meticulous attention to detail and nuance. The resultant album is the work of two musicians at the top of their game, pouring years of experience and expertise into the creation of a record where every sound is there for a reason.

The album's sounds are almost exclusively analog in origin, crafted painstakingly into all manner of textures — as Kolb explains, "This record is extremely guitar heavy, which may surprise people. A lot of my guitar parts were actually recorded with amps and mics and then treated and re-treated… [We] did a lot of surgery to capture and enhance the really interesting bits – reshaping, reconfiguring, and then reprocessing."

Munk adds, "The basis for most of this material comes from guitars and effects devices but every bit has been processed and treated with software… I didn't use a lot of different effects – the focus on my part has been on shaping each bit of sound to perfection, still maintaining the character of a guitar but turning it into something that doesn't sound 'played'. I think of a lot of this material as sounding as if it comes from surroundings rather than from hands touching instruments."

The music the duo have created is immersive and somehow timeless, evoking places and ambiences as exotic as some of those that give the songs their names. "I remember we would sometimes ask each other questions about random places with interesting names that we thought the other person would know something interesting about," Kolb explains. "I would ask Jonas about the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia, or something in that general area of the world and he would ask something similar about Michigan or the Great Lakes. I think we were influenced by the idea of creating music that told vague, semi-fictitious histories of places we knew very little about."

In an age where we race from one instant to the next, never stopping to think about the moment we're inhabiting, Billow Observatory is a record that rewards patience and, yes, time. "[The album] is dense with emotion and meticulously crafted," says Munk, "while feeling light and airy when listening to the song as a whole. I have had this album for over a year and it still withstands the test of time."