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Sun Ark

by Sun Ark

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €12 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Vinyl LP

    Manufactured by Matter of Fact.

    Artwork and Design by Ben Luu

    Includes unlimited streaming of Sun Ark via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      €25 EUR or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Limited Edition CD

    Artwork and Design by Ben Luu.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Sun Ark via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      €17 EUR or more 

     

1.
Sun 05:24
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2.
Wiese 02:43
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3.
Ai Ai 04:41
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4.
photon 02:34
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5.
Walk 04:45
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6.
Shuggie 03:52
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7.
Moon.Sun 02:40
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8.
Onfym 06:20
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9.
Crepuscule 03:28
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10.
ArkOne 05:27
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11.
fear 02:20
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12.
Arden 05:14
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about

Vibey, soulful and genre-bending, Sun Ark weaves together electronic, hip-hop, Brazilian and jazz influences to create a lush, colourful and orchestral sound. Dreamy and complex, Sun Ark founder and songwriter Johannes Mann describes their self-titled debut album (Berlin’s XJAZZ Music, February 2024) as ‘exploring a landscape’; a sonic story with a bright, springy opening track that bends into a red-hot, experimental arc. 

In Sun Ark’s performances, the band’s beat-driven grooves drift from produced compositions penned by Mann into skillful ambient and collaborative improvisations, creating a sound that is effervescent and entirely unique. Two of the band’s in-studio improvisations are excerpted in Sun Ark: fragile, droning ‘Photon’ and delicate ‘Fear’ both stem from the same 25-minute improv, and are sampled at opposite ends of the album.

From Sun Ark’s light, breezy opening track ‘Sun’ to a lush, groovy ‘Arden’ sunset, this exploratory and masterful debut album paints a strange other world, which drip from the trippy and psychedelic to the dark, droning and angular. Listeners tumble into Sun Ark’s shimmery, fluid moods, which reach a crescendo at the album’s midway point, ‘Moon.sun’, a rich, ambient inverse of the album’s opening track, featuring a vocal sample from Charles Mingus’s ‘Eclipse’. Composer Mann and his band of skillful improvisers eschew categorization, leading the listener boldly from contemporary jazz to avant-garde and experimental (‘Ai Ai’ and ‘ArkOne’), lo-fi and guitar-forward (‘Shuggie’) and daydreamy melodies in acoustic Instrumentation (‘Crepuscule’). 

Sun Ark bridges the gap between electronically-produced music and acoustic jazz ensemble playing, with tracks that highlight the skilled musicianship of each of the band’s players. Melancholy, hungover-feeling ‘Walk’  highlights a stand-out bass solo from Thorbjörn Stefansson (on double bass), while Bene Jäckle (flute) provides sparkly, sunny intros and outros to ‘Arden’ and ‘Onfym’. ‘ArkOne’ and ‘Crepuscule’ feature confident performances from Povel Widestrand, playing on the Fender Rhodes and grand piano, and guitarist and composer Mann leans into an ‘80s synth sound in ‘Shuggie’ utilizing a Casio Midi-Guitar. In ‘Ai Ai’, Marius Wankel’s performance on drums is unmistakable, providing a complex rhythm that oozes between fast and slow, while Mann shows his guitar skills improvising over the complex set of Chord Changes of the song.

Mann, Nissen, Widestrand, Stefansson, Wankel and Jäckle have played in venues around the world, from Bahia, Brazil’s Festival de Jazz do Capão to Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and across a number of local venues, including the Jazzexzess Concert Series, A-Trane  and Donau115. In SUN ARK they join forces to improvise and experiment collectively to create a current Sound that aims to have a profound spiritual and emotional Impact.
Sun Ark was recorded by Piotr Zegzula at RecPublica Studios in Lubza, Poland and Mixed & Mastered by Martin Ruch at Control Room Berlin. Additional Overdubs and Postproduction were done by Johannes Mann in his Studio in Berlin-Neukölln. The album’s retro futuristic artwork and visualizers are by Ben Luu, with trippy, mind bending videography by Ada Grueter for “Moon.Sun”.

Words by Eliza Levinson

credits

released February 16, 2024

Jojo Mann - Guitars, Casio DG20, Synthesizers, Production
Asger Nissen - Alto Saxophone, Alto Clarinet
Povel Widestrand - Keyboards, Piano
Thorbjörn Stefansson - Electric and acousic Bass
Marius Wankel - Drums
Bene Jäckle - Flute

Mixed and Mastered by Martin Ruch at Control Room Berlin
Artwork by Ben Luu

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Sun Ark Berlin, Germany

Vibey, soulful and genre-bending, Sun Ark weaves together electronic, hip-hop, Brazilian and jazz influences to create a lush, colourful and orchestral sound. Dreamy and complex, Sun Ark founder and songwriter Johannes Mann describes their self-titled debut album as ‘exploring a landscape’; a sonic story with a sunny, springy opening track that bends into a red-hot, experimental arc. ... more

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