Icelandic Soundscapes: Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Jóhann Jóhannsson

IBM 1401, A USER'S MANUAL

(2006, 4AD)

Iceland! Just thinking of the place elicits mental images aplenty. Volcanic activity, steaming natural hot springs, wide-open rocky expanses, massive glaciers, awe-inspiring scenery, and beautiful people with a penchant for believing in fairies and elves certainly come to mind.

I had a chance to pay Iceland a visit during the Christmas of 2007, and I can confirm that all these mental images are correct. But here on this sub-Arctic island, there is a greater window into what makes the island nation tick; and that is the music that Iceland generates.

To take an atmospheric and eccentric musical voyage to the lava fields, geysers, waterfalls, and glaciers of this beautiful and majestic world takes just a listen to a singular Icelandic composition.

Showcasing a pristine minimalist approach that sounds as if it was made deep beneath the surface of the Earth – perhaps below the Eyjafjallajökull volcano itself – is Reykjavík-based composer and musician Jóhann Jóhannsson’s love letter to an outdated piece of computing machinery.

Jóhann Jóhannsson – IBM 1401, A User’s Manual. (2006, 4AD)

Iceland had a love affair with a machine; namely the IBM 1401, the first affordable, mass-produced digital business computer available on the island – imported for the first time in 1964. Its heyday lasted for seven years, until it was put out to pasture in 1971.

The chief maintenance officer of the machine, one Jóhann Gunnarsson, figured out an intriguing and novel way to make musical sounds with the IBM 1401: placing a radio receiver next to it and programming the memory of the processing unit such that the electromagnetic waves emitted from the computer could be captured by the receiver.

Iceland mourned the machine’s passing in 1971. They even held a funeral for it, playing the melancholic sine-wave sounds one last time as they threw the proverbial soil on top of the discontinued device. The ghostly notes were captured on tape, alongside the noises it made during operation.

Fast-forward 35 years. Gunnarsson’s son, Jóhann Jóhannsson, listened to the tapes of the IBM 1401’s musical notes and decided to write a five-part symphonic piece that would encompass and utilize these sounds – and, in doing so, complement them with the feel and spirit of Iceland itself.

Imagine a flurry of pristine snowflakes washing over you, with the crackle of ice crunching underfoot. A barren snow-flocked landscape, all black volcanic rock covered with ice and snow. Volcanoes lurk on the horizon, shaped like Stepford tits, plumes of steam pouring like smoke from unseen fissures in the crust of the Earth. Timeless.

Jóhannsson brings these images to mind as he gently plays a Hammond B3 organ and elicits forth a dynamic spectrum of sound that seems almost as if it were recorded underwater. He is ably accompanied by a highly skilled and emotive string quartet, the soaring notes they provide to his soundscape creating a lush backdrop of singular grace and beauty.

Add to this the IBM 1401’s peculiar drones and rattles and the occasional disembodied British voice intoning over the ominous and earthy music, instructing the listener on the basics of computer operation and maintenance, and what one has is a window into another place, another time – and the feeling is that of being transported to a mythical hinterland where humanity, nature, and technology meet.

Whether the notes were pulled from the 1401 Central Processing Unit, the 1403 Printer, the 1402 Card-Read Punch, or the 729 II Magnetic Tape Unit, the composition as a whole still feels as if it had come from fissures in the Earth. A pebble tumbles down the incline of a mountainous glacier and plunks into an icy pool of water – the ripples that emanate outwards in concentric rings splash imperceptibly on a distant shore, whilst the strings occupying the wake soar like luminescent birds.

Reminiscent of a magical cloudless evening staring at the Moon, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s starkly gorgeous IBM 1401, A User’s Manual – in my opinion – encapsulates perfectly the feel and the essence of standing on the outskirts of Reykjavík in the dead of winter, where the sky meets the land and civilization comes into contact with the soul of the Earth Herself.

But don't take my word for it! Check out this delightfully enigmatic short film for Jóhannsson's "IBM 1401, A User's Manual - Part 1".

Icelandic Soundscapes: Ghostigital.

GHOSTIGITAL

When I'd gone on holiday in Reykjavík, Iceland during Christmas of 2007, one of the aspects of Icelandic culture I was really looking forward to learning more about was the face of popular music up there in that beautiful northern island. After fantastically helpful trips to record stores such as the legendary 12 Tónar on Skolavor∂ustíg (the incredible employees actually sat me down on a comfy leather sofa and brought me a latté with a stack of CDs and a CD Walkman), I was hooked on what I heard. I ended up buying a nice stack of music that day (and a couple of other days after that), and frankly the music has always proved to be immensely interesting, challenging, fun, and inspirational in the time that has passed since that magical Arctic Christmas – meeting my wife while I was there was also pretty freaking great as well, come to think of it.

12 Tónar

I bring this up because I've had cause to go through my entire music library as I was packing my shit up in San Francisco for my move Down Under, and I had a chance to sift through my Iceland treasures (who have always lived in a separate shelf from my more standard selections), and I thought it would be fun over the next few days to highlight some of the more esoteric and atmospheric (and downright strange) music the kindly folk at 12 Tónar had shared with me on that cold and exciting afternoon over three years ago. I will never forget that shop; I think I still need to send them a nice letter one of these days, truth be told.

FIRST UP: Ghostigital. Their 2006 album In Cod We Trust leapt out at me for two reasons. One – I'd always wondered what Björk's right-hand man in Sugarcubes, Einar Örn Benediktsson, was up to. Second – The music was such an odd and ferociously in-your-face maelstrom of electronica, metal, hip-hop, jazz, cabaret, spoken word poetry, and ... well, frankly quite unclassifiable is how I'd describe it. Teaming up with one DJ/producer extraordinaire Curver, who performed with one of my favourite Icelandic confectionaries, Sometime, Örn has created a bewitchingly original and challenging piece of work with In Cod We Trust. Featuring guest appearances from such guests as Mark E. Smith, Mugison (who will be covered later), New York rapper Sensational, Steve Beresford, and Dalek, this album goes fucking everywhere, man. I can't begin to recommend it enough. From the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink jumbled chaos of "Sense of Reason," through to the alarmingly bizarre aggression of "Crackers," and to the distorted hip-hop paean to the Northern Lights entitled, strangely enough, "Northern Lights," this album, like I said, is quite a challenging listen. But it's rewarding! And there's a shitload of fun to be had once you get used to Örn's vocals, which I will lovingly compare to a psychotic Muppet. I always had him pegged as the more entertaining voice in Sugarcubes. Now: some music!

"Northern Lights"

"Crackers"

Gig Review: Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Jóhann Jóhannsson

14 MAY 2010

Great American Music Hall

San Francisco, California

Reykjavík, Iceland-based composer and musician Jóhann Jóhannsson touched down on San Francisco's Great American Music Hall Friday evening with a mission: To perform select pieces from his newest project, And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees and, in the process, showcase a pristine minimalist approach to creating music that sounds as if it was made by the Earth itself, from some underground locale deep beneath the vast glaciers of Vatnajökull. Spellbinding!

As I write this, wearing my favourite red robe and sipping a cup of English Breakfast tea, I am listening to what is, for me, the ultimate Jóhann Jóhannsson experience: 2006's IBM 1401, A User's Manual. This stands as a most curious work, seeing as it is, essentially, a love letter to the first affordable, mass-produced digital business computer available in Iceland - imported for the first time in 1964. It's heyday lasted for seven years, until it was put out to pasture in 1971, the year of my birth.

I'll take this moment to let Mr Jóhannsson explain this project in his own words. From the liner notes of IBM 1401:

"The chief maintenance officer for this machine was Jóhann Gunnarsson, my father. [...]he learned of an obscure method of making music with this computer - a purpose for which this business machine was not at all designed. The method was simple. The computer's memory emitted strong electromagnetic waves and by programming the memory in a certain way and placing a radio receiver next to it, melodies could be coaxed out - captured by the receiver as a delicate, melancholy sine-wave tone."

I don't know what's cooler - the fact that his father was the chief maintenance officer for the "Model T" of computers, or that he figured out how to make music with it. Needless to say, Iceland (always a quirky and eccentric place) mourned the machine's passing in 1971, when it was discontinued. They held a funeral for it, playing the notes from it for one last time, and capturing the ghostly sounds on tape, alongside the noises it made during operation.

And what a cool thing for Jóhannsson to do - take these sounds from nearly four decades ago and create a five-part symphony with a string quartet! Every so often during the piece, a disembodied British voice intones over the ominous and earthy music, instructing the listener on the basics of computer operation, and on the art of simple maintenance. I'm getting goosebumps right about now!

I'd first heard of Jóhann Jóhannsson when I was in Reykjavík for Christmas of 2007. I'd entered the record store 12 Tónar early one afternoon and asked the friendly clerk if he could turn me on to any Icelandic electronica that I (most assuredly) hadn't heard before. He plunked me down on a black leather couch, poured me a cup of coffee, gave me a CD Walkman along with a nifty little pile of CDs, and told me to listen to my heart's content. And so I did. And ...

Enough digression, already! So, how was the show?

I'm glad you asked.

There was a slow-building intensity, gaining momentum in the Great American Music Hall's intimate womb as Jóhannsson and his colleagues took the stage bathed in dark blue light. There was Jóhannsson, perched behind a couple of Apple MacBooks and an electric piano; a string quartet assembled from three violins and a cello; and a bespectacled man off to the right, who performed the evening's percussion on an array of buttons, knobs, laptops, and keyboards.

It's hard to describe the music - but I'll try. Imagine a flurry of percussion washing over you: the gravelly crackle of pebbles tumbling down a field of ice and rock - increasing in volume and intensity until it is a veritable avalanche of boulders coming loose from their summit and raining down on the entire audience, accompanied by the soaring crescendos and notes of the highly skilled and emotive string quartet. Jóhannsson's bald pate shines in the violet and indigo lights as he massages his computers and elicits forth a dynamic spectrum of sound that seems almost as if it were recorded underwater.

A pebble falls down a mountainous glacier and falls into a pool of water - the ripples emanate outwards in concentric rings, splashing imperceptibly on a distant shore, whilst the strings occupying the wake left in mythical angels' wings streak overhead like the airstream from a ridiculously fast aircraft.

In the liner notes for IBM 1401, A User's Manual, Jóhannsson stated the encapsulation of what he was looking for: "man-machine interaction; obsolete, discarded technology; nostalgia for old computers; ... the relationships between human and artificial intelligence ..."

That was back in 2006. There I was, seated at a small table with a faux-marble finish, and drinking champagne out of a can (Sofia, by Francis Ford Coppola), watching this musical magician conjure these elemental dreams with his cohorts on an intimate stage on the fringe of the Tenderloin in downtown San Francisco; what I heard and experienced was a step beyond what he'd stated only four years ago. I think he's delved into a close and beautiful examination of the relationships between human and nature itself.

setlist.

tu non me perderai

englabörn

flight from the city

rocket builder

miracle.mystery.authority

corpus camera

sálfrae∂ingur

drömme i københavn

ibm 1401 part one: processing unit

englabörn - variations

melodia (guidelines for a space propulsion device)

odi et amo

---------

fordlandia

Let me close on this: I'm sure it's hard to get a gist of what I'm talking about in regards to the music. Don't worry! I'd like to share a sample of his music with you -- and who knows? If you'd like, you can look up some of his art; frankly, I think it makes fantastic afternoon music. Check it out, by all means. In the meantime, here is "IBM 1401: Processing Unit" off of ... well, I think you know that by now. Enjoy!