Manual & Syntaks

Manual & Syntaks are Jonas Munk and Jakob Skott, respectively. They’ve worked together with others under the name Limp, with tracks on the Morr Music label. If you’ve enjoyed previous Morr releases, like the Slowdive-inspired Blue Skied an’ Clear compilation, Golden Sun is something that you’d find equally appealing, but with a bit less variety and no vocals. This album sounds much like the tracks they’ve done for Morr, mixing together acoustic and electric guitars, skittering drums, light synth melodies and glitches. It’s a combination they pull off well, using these elements to varying extents in different tracks. Most of the songs are relaxed, it’s not a hectic or rushed album. Some depend on loops, while others have many ideas. Some of the better tracks are the melodic, hip-hop influenced opener "Eudaimonia,” "Sal Paradise,” with its glitches, flute-like melody and chopped vocal snatches, "Adinava,” for working a strange female vocal loop to death yet still keeping it interesting, and the somehow gentle-but-glitchy "Sunset Rider.”