Track of the Moment: The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black by Jóhann Jóhannsson

When I chose Jóhann Jóhannsson’s IBM 1401, A User’s Manual as one of my top 42 albums, there were a lot of “huh?”s and “who’s that?” floating around the room, but I didn’t answer them, mostly because Steve threw me into the Writer’s Cellar for picking an artist he didn’t know (Steve likes to think he knows every band and artist in existence). After a few weeks of being deprived of sunlight and human contact, Steve thought I should go back into the Writer's Cellar to actually write an article about this Icelandic dude (that joke is a grower, not a shower).

Being in Iceland must be like living in a time machine; the IBM 1401 computer was discontinued in 1971, and yet it took until 2006 until it was used to create music. Well, featured in music. Also, Icelandic  people must be living in wooden houses, cooking over a campfire in handmade parkas, reading this article via Morse Code. Luckily I don’t know Morse Code, so I can’t read their hate mail. But anyway, Jóhannsson is a modern orchestral composer who kicks a lot of ass (mostly because of his name, but his music is good too). He’s in the same vein as Soap&Skin, in that he takes classical instruments and adds an electronic element to them. It’s hard to tell where the classical starts and the electronic ends, mostly because it’s all so beautifully composed and integrated together. His music is also very sad, but open and slightly ambient, perfectly replicating the feeling of living in Iceland.

Probably his most well known song is “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black”; it was featured in the teaser trailer for Battlefield: LA, which, given how bad the movie turned out, seems to be the least likely source to have introduced me to such beautiful music. As for the song itself, it features the recording that inspired this album, a tune created by Jóhannsson’s dad on the IBM 1401 computer, which he did maintenance on back in the day (which was 2006, no matter what the internet tells you). Bringing together a 60 piece orchestra, he created an open, beautiful piece featuring the mournful voice of the IBM 1401 singing. The music slowly builds, and the short vocal recording fades away, bring the song into a sad, but hopeful tune as the music peaks. Finally, it ends with an almost happy resolution. The last few minutes remind me of the end of an Indiana Jones-esque film, where evil has been vanquished, the hero got the girl, and everyone is smiling and watching the sun set as the camera slowly pulls back into the sky. It’s a fantastic song from a great composer, and is definitely worth your time.