JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON The Mercy

The team at Deutsche Grammophon are in deep mourning over the loss of our friend, Jóhann Jóhannsson. In the three years of our close collaboration, a true friendship had grown.

We are speechless and take comfort in the memory of Jóhann’s warm, enigmatic personality, his intelligent dry sense of humour and his relentless uncompromising search for new sounds and concepts. Jóhann’s sonic scapes are unique and the void left by his passing can never be filled.

The power of his music will live on and continue to touch us. (Deutsche Grammophon)

Composer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Jóhann Jóhannsson is one of Iceland's most prolifically creative musicians, as a solo artist as well as a part of the Kitchen Motors label and collective (which also includes members of Sigur Rós, Múm, and Slowblow) and also Apparat Organ Quartet. Kitchen Motors' aesthetic, which focuses on largely improvised and electronic music, also applies to his other projects. Apparat Organ Quartet, with music described as "machine rock & roll," consists of four keyboardists who play discarded vintage instruments that they refurbish and a drummer. Jóhannsson's work on his own ranges from delicate laptop pop to sound art installations in galleries to collaborations with Barry Adamson, the Hafler Trio, and Pan Sonic. His first solo album, 2002's Englabörn, paired a string quartet with percussion, keyboards, and electronics in a series of bittersweet miniatures, while 2004's Virthulegu Forsetar was a much more expansive work scored for brass, organ, keyboards, and electronics that was composed for and recorded in Reykjavik's Hallgrimskirkja Church. The British label Touch released both of these albums, but 2005's Dis was issued by Worker's Institute.

For 2006's IBM 1401, A User's Manual, Jóhannsson moved to 4AD. One of Jóhannsson's most ambitious projects, it was inspired by the first computer brought to Iceland in 1964 and based on a recording of an IBM computer that his father made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. A string quartet version of the work was performed as the accompaniment to a dance piece by choreographer Erna Omarsdórtir at the 2002 Dansem Festival. The recorded version of IBM 1401, A User's Manual incorporated vocalizing, electronics, and a 60-piece orchestra along with the original recordings of the IBM computer. Released in 2008, Fordlandia, inspired in part by Henry Ford's failed rubber plant in Brazil, was the second part of a planned trilogy about technology and iconic American brands. Jóhannsson toured the U.S. in summer 2009, and the soundtrack he composed for the animated film Varmints was sold as And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees, a limited-edition, tour-only release. The album was given a wider release the following year on Type.

Two years later, Jóhannsson's music for Bill Morrison's documentary The Miner's Hymns arrived on FatCat; during the early and mid-2010s, he composed the scores to many films, including 2012's Copenhagen Dreams, 2013's Prisoners, 2014's The Theory of Everything (which won him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Original Score), and 2015's Denis Villeneuve-directed Sicario, which also earned a Best Original Score nomination. In 2016, Jóhannsson's collaborative score with Hildur Gudnadóttir for the BBC TV series Trapped won the Best Score award at that year's Edda Awards in his native Iceland; that year, the composer also signed with Deutsche Grammophon to release some of his non-score projects. The first of these was Orphée, his first solo studio album in six years. Inspired by several versions of the Orpheus myth -- including French director Jean Cocteau's film -- as well as Jóhannsson's move to Berlin, Orphée arrived in September 2016. His film music was still a priority, with his score to Villeneuve's sci-fi thriller Arrival released in late 2016. In 2018, he supplied the score for director James Marsh's sailing drama The Mercy. (Heather Phares)

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON Orphée

Orphée traces a path from darkness into light, inspired by the various re-tellings of the ancient tale of the poet Orpheus, from Ovid’s to Jean Cocteau’s. A many-layered story about death, rebirth, change and the ephemeral nature of memory, the myth can also be read as a metaphor for artistic creation, dealing with the elusive nature of beauty and its relationship to the artist, as well as the idea that art is created through transgression – by the poet defying the gods who have forbidden him to turn back towards his beloved as he leaves the Underworld.

Orphée’s sonic palette is varied, combining acoustic instruments both solo and in ensemble with electronics and the mesmeric sounds of shortwave radio “numbers stations”. It draws on many facets of his previous albums, incorporating music for solo cello, organ, string quartet, string orchestra and unaccompanied voices.

Orphée shows the full range of the Icelandic composer’s remarkable invention and uncanny feeling for atmosphere. The music of the entire album is tied together structurally by recurring harmonic and melodic elements, yet each track sounds fresh, evocative and unique. Orphée reconciles ambitious orchestral and vocal writing with influences ranging from the Baroque to minimalism and electronic music. Also influenced by film composers Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone and Michael Nyman (all prolific writers, like Jóhann himself, of concert music as well as film scores), Jóhannsson is a contemporary exponent of a tradition that was shaped by composers such as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Walton or Korngold.

“Orphée is for me about changes: about moving to a new city, leaving behind an old life in Copenhagen and building a new one in Berlin – about the death of old relationships and the birth of new ones,” explains Jóhann. “Perhaps this is one of the reasons I was drawn to the Orpheus myth, which is fundamentally about change, mutability, death, rebirth, the elusive nature of beauty and its sometimes thorny relation to the artist. This album, my first solo record for six years, is an oblique reflection on personal change.”

Orphée is a haunting and atmospheric musical journey, crowned by the sublime Orphic Hymn – a setting of Ovid’s text performed by Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices. The album is a reflection on change, memory, beauty and art, and ultimately celebrates the latter’s power of renewal, while acknowledging the dark paths along which it can lead the artist. “Making Orphée has been a true labour of love, one that has been a part of my life for six years, and yet the music always remained fresh – it was constantly in a state of flux and renewal,” its composer concludes. (Deutsche Grammophon)