Jóhann Jóhannsson
4AD, Iceland
One of the most respected and important neo-classical composers of the last decade, having collaborated with artists like Marc Almond, Barry Adamson, Pan Sonic or The Hafler Trio. He is a member of Apparat Organ Quartet. Musician, producer and composer, Jóhann Jóhannson has bequeathed to posterity thrilling works as IBM 1401: A user´s Manual (4AD, 2006) or Fördlandia (4AD, 2008), always trying to evolve, by incorporating electronics to classical orchestrations, a genre not much given to testing.
From his first work, Englabörn (Touch, 2002) to the last one, And in the endless pause there comes the sound of bees (NOTV, 2009), Jóhann Jóhannson has been working with absolute perfection in the construction of melody, in evocation and storytelling, or in the achievement of impeccable style exercises only done by those masters who ultimately transcend history. Jóhannson´s music is tremendously epic and majestic, obsessively melodic and highly conceptual: Fördlandia is considered his masterpiece; it is inspired in a desert town in Amazonia that Henry Ford had bought in the 1920´s. IBM 1401: A User´s Manual is a work structured around the relationship between man and machine, composed for an orchestra of 60 musicians integrating electronic arrangements and musical recordings made with an IBM 1401 computer from 1960´s. Both have contributed abundantly to make Jóhann a real cult musician.
