JOHAN JOHANNSSON
IBM 1401, a User’s Manual
4AD
THOMAS LARCHER
Ixxu
ECM
· Outsider music redefined for the new millennium.
In order to bring something new to popular music, one must come to it from somewhere outside, but such an elsewhere is increasingly hard to find. Classical music, however, has remained reliably foreign for the last 50 years (if less for its European origins than for its maturity and intellectual demands). And while in that time there have been repeated pop-classical and orchestral pop fusions, it is not until fairly recently that a clearly defined and genuinely popular new intermediate form has established itself, helped by its association to post-rock and electronic music.
Icelandic composer Johan Johannsson is a bit involved in all these areas, and probably best known in North America as part of the Apparat Organ Quartet, a Kraftwerk for the new millennium.
IBM 1401, a User’s Manual is his fourth solo album, following the usual series of soundtracks, and it is not a groundbreaking work – its basic idea of strings and technical documents was popularized in 2002 by AGF and Craig Armstrong's "Waltz," which in turn was descended from the Philip Glass "Knee Plays" of some 25 years earlier. However, this CD succeeds in taking that concept a big step further, to an hour-long symphony in which the contrast between the triviality of the text and the grandiloquence of the accompaniment takes on genuinely tragic dimensions.
It is also one of the very few current examples of a symphonic orchestra being used honestly, for a more complex sound rather than as a clichéd signifier of high art and deep feeling (the accompanying single is also worth tracking down, its B-side condensing the album's musical content in a well-formed six-minute passacaglia).
Good as IBM 1401 may be, it is not strictly speaking "classical" music. While moving and intelligent, it is not intellectually demanding on first approach, or revealing of hidden subtleties after repeated visits. For that sort of thing, you are better off with the latest from Austrian pianist and composer Larcher. Ixxu is a solid piece of modernism, studiously avoiding overt melody, accepting the dogma that a nervous breakdown is the only honest response to the human condition, etc., but it somehow manages to be a bit more musical than its peers, with the Rosamunde Quartett putting just enough warmth into their performance to pull you in while kicking you in the teeth, musically speaking.
Like almost every other serious modern composer, Larcher has no idea of how to handle a solo voice, so it's unfortunate that a quarter of this album features a soprano, but no pain, no gain. Obviously this isn't for everyone, but it's fair to ask whether anything honest still can be.
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