Johann Johannsson - The Miners' Hymns

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4...according to our Phil on Fri 20 May, 2011.

I picked this up and misread it as 'The Miners' Wives' and I thought ey up Johannsson.... what you been up to! Anyway so I don't sound like an ignorant fool (or anymore of one) I'll briefly explain the premise of this. I do feel these days half of things I write about the concept seems to carry more weight than the music but that's a different story. Anyhoo this is the soundtrack to an upcoming film released by the BFI by Bill Morrison which pays homage to the history of coal mining throughout North East England. Johann was asked to score (mine's a Henry :)) and the album was recorded in Durham cathedral with a 16 piece brass ensemble, church organ and electronics. So that's all the vitals over. Musically the album is very atmospheric and cinematic sounding. As ever with an audio soundtrack you're only getting half the story as there's no visuals but I can imagine the sparseness and emotiveness of the music working well with the film. Very well in fact. It's very epic in scale but with that many musicians involved it would be. There are moments of 'Brassed Off' in there but if you can get passed those you're laughing. The church organ is what makes this for me and though I'm no churchgoer it does make me wanna go and hang around churches for a bit and check out some giant organs.

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· Beautiful FatCat / 130701 debut for Icelandic composer
Jóhann Jóhannsson and his score to Bill Morrison’s new
film.

· Jóhann is widely known as one of the modern classical /
post-classical genre’s flagship composers, helping to define
the genre rather than being limited by it.

· This record is the soundtrack to a found-footage
documentary created by award-winning, acclaimed
director Bill Morrison (‘Decasia’ etc.). The film will be
released worldwide by the BFI in June 2011.

· Jóhann’s score was performed live by a 16-piece brass
ensemble in Durham Cathedral, the setting for the film’s
climax and many historic colliery galas – a first for the
predominantly string / piano-based 130701 imprint.

· Jóhann has released several well received full-lengths on
Touch, Type, 12 Tonar and 4AD, as well as having scored
several films, dances and theatre performances.

· Jóhann will be performing at the Barbican’s Steve Reich
weekender ‘Reverberations’ in May 2011, alongside Reich
himself.

· A special, exclusive screening of excerpts from ‘The Miners’
Hymns’ will accompany Max Richter, Hauschka and Dustin
O’Halloran at their performance at the one-off Brighton
Festival / Great Escape live event in May.

· This album will appeal to fans of Max Richter, Peter
Broderick, Hauschka, Sylvain Chauveau, Yann Tiersen,
Ludovico Einaudi, Steve Reich.