I would imagine that, for composer and sound artist Matthew Patton, being given access to the late, great Jóhann Jóhannsson‘s studio hard drives after his death (at the age of just 48, and in his prime) must have been both thrilling and an intimidating responsibility. The record he has produced feels respectful, and also happens to be rather beautiful in its own right. Wisely, he hasn’t attempted to pull off some kind of tribute act: although orchestral, this is much more ambient than anything I associate with Jóhannsson, and more obviously processed. There’s a rumbling running through much of it which is, I believe, an amplified form of the gaps between takes in the original recordings. There are other elements which are recognizable, most obviously a part of the numbers-station-like voice from Orphée. He layers on his own string arrangements, played by the Possible Orchestra in Winnipeg and the Ghost Orchestra in Reykjavik. The name of the latter seems particularly apt, as there is something unavoidably hauntological about all this. Is it too much of a stretch to describe Jóhannsson as a kind of benign spectral presence? Perhaps, perhaps not. But maybe it doesn’t matter: this work has a shimmering, restrained power to it, the final segment (The End Of Life In Sound) is real hold-your-breath stuff, and I’m pretty sure I’d think it was a cracking listen even without the back story.
I bought this from Boomkat. They call it Modern Classical / Ambient.
dogrando writes about some records 