This Sunday, Note Productions brings a triple bill of FatCat artists to the Sugar Club; Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka and Johann Johannsson. Three leading lights of the musical zone where post-classical, electronica, ambient and song meet, the composers’ 8pm performance is sold out but there are still some seats free at the special matinee performance on Sunday afternoon.
We catch up with Johann Johannsson, Icelandic composer of neo-classical/ambient/whatever music of epic emotional proportions, in the final days of his work on a film score. The film is about neurological research into the effects of meditative therapy for post-traumatic stress-suffering former soldiers and children with ADHD. Not one then for a pizza and a few beers on a quiet night in. However, the contemplative quality of the film’s subject certainly strikes a similar tone to that of the Icelandic composer’s work, which operates in a constant state of intense semi-stasis, developing the tiny details which eventually make the whole picture evolve into something quite unexpected.
“The theme of the film is something that I had very little trouble connecting to and it was something I felt like I could work with immediately when I watched it,” says Johannsson, despite not practising meditation himself.
“It’s not something that I explore actively, I’m more interested in the ideas behind it,” he says. “It’s not something that I was particularly interested in before being approached about this film but I am interested in it. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. I don’t really practice it myself but I’m very interested in this idea of modern science and practices that are thousands of years old colliding.”
The tension and relationship between what he terms as Western science and Eastern contemplative traditions finds a parallel in Johannsson’s work. His bridging of long-standing classical tradition and the world of contemporary electronic and ambient music is quite unique in its completeness. “For me, working on music is a meditation because it’s all about emptying the mind and it’s all about focusing on very narrow details and being obsessively focused,” he says. “I think I fall into a kind of meditative state when I work and I think that’s the closest I get to it in a way.”
Johannsson’s interest in the clash of old and new most often finds expression in the relationship between machines and humans. He sites it as a running theme in his work, perhaps beginning with his highly-personal IBM1401: A User’s Manual and running through both Fordlandia and Miner’s Hymns. His work always stops short of becoming cold or mechanical though, perhaps because of his human-centred approach to the relationship, with the personal aspect drawing him in. This is especially true of IBM1401. “I think it’s very much about how we deal with and how we relate to machines,” says Johannsson. “I mean, what I found interesting about the central story of that album was when my father recorded music he made on this computer in the early 70s and basically developed a way of creating music on this computer that was not at all created for that purpose.”
“When this machine was taken out of commission, when it was due to be retired or decommissioned, they held a little ceremony for it, like a farewell ceremony, and they recorded that as well as the sounds and music that they made on the computer,” he continues. “That kind of struck me you know? Why do they have this personal relationship with this computer? Why isn’t it just thrown away like an old refrigerator or an old typewriter? There was obviously some kind of strong sentimental relationship that they had with it so that was what I found fascinating about those tapes when my father told me about them and I listened to them and it became the key to the piece or the thing that sparked the piece.”
Another element which centres his work on the tangible, human force is Johannsson’s intricate balance of traditional acoustic instruments and spaces, with a highly processed, studio-born elements. The way the acoustic parts of pieces retain power and vitality, complemented by and in turn complementing the electronic elements, hints at harmony between the two rather than dissonance. “I find it just much more fascinating to work with acoustic sounds,” says Johannsson. “There’s something that happens when you record a sound in a room or an instrument playing in a room. The room is a large part of it and I try to select very carefully where I record and the sound of the room is very important. That combination is something I like to work with and bring that into or marry these two worlds of acoustic and electronic. It’s really the clash between the two that interests me.”
“All my records very much processed and they’re quite artificial in that sense,” he says. “They’re not documents of a live performance. The ones that come closest to that are probably my first two albums. Virðulegu Forsetar is almost a document of a live performance. In general, I tend to work a lot in the studio and the studio is at least 20%-30% of the composition. A lot of things happen in the studio that have as much to do with writing as putting notes on paper.”
Perhaps it is this approach, incorporating modernity and engaging with it in depth, which has seen Johannsson earn more praise from indie and rock press than most people who compose for symphony orchestras on a daily basis. For all the technical proficiency, both in terms of classic form and structure and the digital elements of post-processing, Johannson’s music remains warm and understandable in a way often sacrificed in contemporary classical music. The boundaries of genre certainly don’t interest him now and the reception among traditional indie crowds comes as no surprise. “Even though this music that I’m known for is closer to classical than to rock, my background is in playing guitar in loud indie bands,” he says. “That’s how it started. The classical thing came later actually, after that. So it doesn’t feel strange, it doesn’t feel weird to me at all. I don’t like to compartmentalize or put brackets around anything I do, I don’t like to put it in one category or another. If it can find an audience in the classical world or it can find an audience in the indie world, that’s great.”
“I think I’m just looking for listeners with an open mind, people that are interested in hearing something new” he says in conclusion. “I try to make music that speaks to people, kind of as a way of connecting with people. I like to make music that connects with people and has some sort of emotional resonance, but the only criteria is if it resonates emotionally with me. That’s the only criteria I have really, if it moves me and has an effect on me. If it resonates and has an effect on me, then it’s likely it’ll have some sort of similar effect on others. Writing and making music is about communication for me.”
