Jóhannsson

Last And First Men, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s poetic swansong, receives its world film premiere on 25 February at Berlinale 2020. Deutsche Grammophon will release the original score digitally worldwide on 28 February followed by the release of the film on Blu-ray, packaged with the CD, and a Limited Deluxe Vinyl Art Edition in March. The Icelandic composer was working on the score of his magnum opus at the time of his death in February 2018, distilling and intensifying the symphonic soundworld that he had premiered at Manchester International Festival (MIF) six months earlier. Jóhann Jóhannsson devised the multimedia work’s visual concept, travelled to the former Yugoslavia to shoot footage of isolated locations and futuristic war memorials, then set about marrying haunting images to music.

Orphée is the tenth and final full-length studio album by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, released under Deutsche Grammophon on September 16, 2016. The music is inspired by Ovid's interpretation of the Orpheus myth.

Delivering a second long-form release for 4AD, Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson continues with a second part of his proposed trilogy of albums themed around iconic American brands. After IBM 1401 - A User's Manual, Johannsson turns his attentions to Fordlandia, named after the expanse of land purchased by Henry Ford in the Brazillian rainforest - a failed settlement designed as a means for acquiring rubber in the 1920s. As it turns out, this is only one amongst a number of overlapping themes drawn from various obscure corners of modern history, all knitted together like something from Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. The album is divided into a number of different threads, with themes recurring throughout - much as has been the case in Johannsson's previous works. Here, between the grandeur and cinematic majesty of the Fordlandia-themed compositions you'll find the 'Melodia' series, taking on a more intimate, piano-driven and melancholy temperament. It's all beautifully produced, extracting the very strict, classical style of Johannsson's music from what might otherwise reach ECM-like levels of discipline.