Jóhann Jóhannsson

Jóhann Jóhannson is an Icelandic composer who makes clever, moving, conceptual music. His 2006 album, IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, featured a 60-piece orchestra and a lone voice intoning instructions written for the first mainframe computer in Iceland. A follow-up, 2008’s Fordlandia, was just as inventive, with soaring instrumentals and a thematic storyline about failed utopian ideals. Jóhannson’s work has always been cinematic in scope, and his most recent projects have finally brought that to fruition: Last year he released And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees, a stirring, minimalistic score for the 30-minute animated short "Varmints," and this year he’ll collaborate with filmmaker Bill Morrison on The Miners' Hymns.

Updated 04/29/2010