Monumental new album from Jóhann Jóhannsson. Just jumped into my Top 10 for 2008. Can't even begin to express how moving this album is.



Jóhann Jóhannsson returns with a new album, Fordlândia on November 3rd (ROW) / 4th (US).

An American magnate builds a doomed utopia in the depths of the Brazilian rainforest. A Victorian poetess laments the death of Pan. A pagan rocket scientist blows himself up in his Californian garage. A crippled German physicist draws up the equations which can make faster than light travel possible, unseen by the rest of the world.

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s spellbinding new album draws these tantalising threads together, weaving a musical tapestry of hypnotic richness and surprising emotional depth.

Jóhannsson makes stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music - which frequently combines electronic processing with classical orchestrations - that has been quietly bewitching listeners for the last few years. His first two solo records - Englabörn (2002), written for string quartet, percussion and electronics, and Virthulegu Forsetar (2004), written for brass ensemble, drones and percussion – were released by the singular British independent Touch label.

Englabörn was derived from music that Johann wrote for an Icelandic play using string quartet, piano, organ, glockenspiel and percussion. These elements were processed and manipulated, adding delicate electronic accents to the otherwise entirely acoustic recordings. Virthulegu Forsetar was a one hour-long piece for eleven brass players, percussion, electronics, organs and piano. It shares Englabörn’s quiet, elegiac beauty, but replaces the brevity of the first album’s exquisite miniatures with an extended sweep of sound that reveals a long, slow process of evolution.

Jóhann is involved in many different projects in his native Iceland, including the all-analog Apparat Organ Quartet and Kitchen Motors, the art organization/think tank/record label which specializes in instigating collaborations and art projects across diverse artforms. Among many other things, he has also recently composed scores for the award-winning animator Marc Craste (Varmints, 2008) and the American independent film Personal Effects (David Hollander, 2008).

Johann’s first release for 4AD, IBM 1401 - A User’s Manual (2006), involved a sixty-piece string orchestra recorded at Prague’s legendary Barrandov sound stage and incorporated electronics and vintage reel-to-reel recordings of a 1960’s IBM 1401 mainframe computer and its accompanying instruction manual.

After IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, Fordlândia is the second instalment in a proposed trilogy based on technology and iconic American brand names. Whereas IBM 1401, A User’s Manual was a personal response to technology and its inevitable obsolescence (inspired by his father’s work with mainframe computers in 1960s Iceland), Fordlândia springs out of a far more diffuse set of influences. It brings together the soaring grandeur of its predecessor – some sections were recorded with the same orchestra in Prague – and the intimacy of Englabörn, moving between heady, melting cadences and crystalline motifs with gorgeous, dreamlike logic.

In short, Fordlândia is Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most complete and beautiful piece of music to date; a fascinating, immersive and deeply rewarding web of ideas and melodies, which is sure to win him a legion of new listeners.

Interesting. I'll check it. And thanks for that Max R. Postcards album. I've been looking back into his earlier stuff.

nice! he's definitely one of my favs, especially The Blue Notebooks.

does anyone have ibm 1401?

yes i do. need it?

would love to hear it.

will have 4 u later today

listened to this yesterday and it is great. definitely a "mood" album, but when it comes up, i'll be glad i have this.

one track in and I am enjoying this a lot. Thanks, Dalen.

this sounds awesome

I'm really enjoying this. Thanks a lot.

johann johannsson - Dis



Ditching the orchestral manoeuvres of his last album, Iceland’s wondrous Johann Johannsonn has instead embraced the more traditional song structure for 'Dis'; a kind of soundtrack project, but for what I'm not sure. One moment as happy as Larry, the next pondering the fragility of mankind, 'Dis' sees Johannsonn's mood-ring flashing like a disco. Opening with 'Bangkok Nordursins', Johannsonn approaches with a gleaming (if not pathos dusted) smile, taking a healthy leaf from the books of Hermann & Kleine and Mum, before dredging indie-fried riffs for '10 Rokkstig'. After this bucolic opening, the first real taste of a darker Johannson comes on the stunning 'Ja, Hemmi Min', wherein a muted exuberance leads to a sound reminiscent of Vladislav Delay collaborating with Sigur Ros. If you're not sure how that would sound, let me summarise; it's an unqualified success. Elsewhere, both 'Jardarfor' and 'Flugeldar' tickle the ivories in a fashion that will please anyone recently bewitched by Hauscka and The Boats, whilst 'Efripides Og Nedripides' makes real the intriguing spectre of a Mum/Supergrass hook-up. Featuring members ofReykjavik bands Funerals, Slowblow and Trabant as well as renowned Icelandic guitarist Hilmar Jennsson and one of Iceland's most beloved singers, Ragnheidur Grondal, this is a very different and wholly unexpected album from one of our favourite producers of the moment – check it immediately.

Johann Johannsson - IBM 1401, Users Manual



So here it is, Jóhann Jóhannsson's eagerly awaited debut album for the 4AD label, and we're very happy indeed to say that it's the finest record he's put his name to yet. I suppose the move from Touch worried some fans at first, but on hearing 'IBM 1401...' in it's entirety it makes perfect sense as part of the 4AD catalogue. Jóhannsson found inspiration for the record after discovering his father's IBM1401, a cumbersome 1960s computer system for which his father was a technician. Apparently these machines used to cost $2500 per day to lease and probably did a lot less than you'd think given the price, but Jóhannsson saw something intriguing to sample and in the same way that he utilised morse code receivers and ham radios on his Kitchen Motors disc, he uses IBM1401 training tapes as the thematic link on these tracks. An English voice can be heard describing the computer parts and how they work and how to engineer repairs on the machine and it's peripherals, of course this is something that can ruin an otherwise good piece of music, but Jóhannsson in his restraint has managed to use the samples so cleverly that they actually become part of the music itself. The assertive voice becomes a symbol of nostalgia and that dusty sentiment, a picture of technology passed, or an electronic postcard from 1960, and never becomes there merely for the sake of it. Coupled with the simply stunning string arrangements they add a strange ethereal narrative, and while not telling a story as such, they bring vivid pictures to mind with great ease. Jóhannsson's skill in merging sounds doesn't end here either, as we heard on the stunning 'Englabörn' he can subtly blend his electronic production methods with the orchestral arrangements without it ever falling out of place. Synthesized chimes trip and fall in-between the orchestral swells and radiophonic bleeps to create soundscapes so breathtaking they can leave you totally lost for words. It would be almost offensive however to merely label 'IBM 1401, A User's Manual' as cinematic, rather Jóhannsson has pushed the bar higher and taken the infant post-classical genre to the next logical place, creating an album which doesn't just suggest visuals, rather with it's oblique use of sampled voices and atmospheric sounds the visuals are there all the time and are simply left for us to interpret. A challenging, engaging and utterly breathtaking experience, Jóhann Jóhannsson has proved he is out there on his own. Essential purchase.

solid

Awesome Dalen. Awesome.

Magnificent. Thanks for the rec.