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| Fordlandia | 
| List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $10.51
You Save: $4.47 (30%)
Buy New/Used from $10.51
Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 2 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2551
Category: Music
Artist: Johann Johannsson
Publisher: 4ad Records
Studio: 4ad Records
Manufacturer: 4ad Records
Label: 4ad Records
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 72812
UPC: 652637281224
EAN: 0652637281224
ASIN: B001D45BSI
Release Date: November 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | FordlAndia | | • | melodia (i) | | • | The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!) | | • | melodia (ii) | | • | FordlAndia - Aerial View | | • | melodia (iii) | | • | Chimaerica | | • | melodia (iv) | | • | The Great God Pan is Dead | | • | Melodia (Guidelines for a Space Propulsion Device based on Heim's Quantum Theory) | | • | How We Left FordlAndia |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A musical tapestry of hypnotic richness and surprising emotional depth. Johannsson makes stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music, which frequently combines electronic processing with classical orchestrations. "Fordlandia" is the second installment in a proposed trilogy based on technology and iconic American brand names. A fascinating, immersive, and deeply rewarding web of ideas and melodies.
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| Customer Reviews:
EVEN AS METAPHOR December 31, 2008
Johannsson has emerged as a leading voice in new classical work. His remarkable Virdulegu forsetar set about establishing new form capable of reconciling orchestral and electronic constructs. Fordlandia follows the equally stunning ibm 1401, a user's manual, as the second installment in Johannsson's proposed trilogy of technocratic and autocratic American business icons - a fact that lets one ponder the good and generally bad impacts of technology on culture as both Henry Ford's Fordlandia rubber plantation and the mass production of the internal combustion engine ably demonstrate. Running contrary to the mastering trend of Maximum Volume At All Times, Johannsson's final mix and presentation is careful to preserve dynamic range, with many passages seemingly seeking the absolute lower threshold of hearing, not unlike Tavener's The Last Sleep of the Virgin about which the composer urged listeners to "play at a barely audible level". With an invocation from Browning ("and, that dismal cry rose slowly and sank slowly...") the music of Fordlandia is again elegiac, and beautiful in its sustained, shifting and detailed articulations of mourning, of failure, of escape, while never becoming monolithic in mood or two-dimensional in invention. Achieving a persistent sense of delicacy amid such profound compositional power is becoming a reliable trait of Johannsson's work, and no other composer with a similar ability comes to mind. As for the themes driving the narrative itself, Johannsson introduces a broad number of elements not directly related to the ethical, economic and cultural collapse that was Fordlandia, but perhaps more intuitively important to the comprehension of the firsthand experience of unbridled capitalistic hubris and greed - a timely topic indeed. But, to this listener, the narrative remains a secondary issue. If it serves as a necessary foundation or starting point for the way in which Johannsson approaches his work, you'll get no argument from me. In the end, the music tells its own moving and memorable tale.
Headphone Commute Review December 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A few years ago, when I was regularly creating mixes for a podcast, an idea came across to compile music for my funeral. One thing I am sure about - I will die. And when I pass on, music will be filling in the void that was once my presence. How touching. Why shouldn't I be the one to select the pieces that would make others weep? Yes, I'll admit, I can be self centered like that. For my opening track, I turned to Johann Johannsson, and his Odi Et Amo from Englaboern (4AD, 2007). Now, with the release of Fordlandia, I may need to compile a second volume. On second thought, just play the whole album! But don't get me wrong. I don't want to come across saying that Johannsson's compositions are full of funeral sound [perhaps that should be a genre in itself?]. Yet, this Icelandic-born modern classical musician composes some of the most beautiful and soul drenching works that I have ever heard. The saturation of emotion approaches even my limits, and my eyes swell up with tears, as the concrete humanity gets cleansed in the rain, out in the windows of my crawling train. This is Johannsson's sixth full length album. Besides these contemporary classical conceptual pieces, Johannsson produced about a dozen of soundtracks for [mostly] Icelandic films, shorts and documentaries. There are also his theatrical works, arrangements for many artists, and music for installations. It would be an understatement to say that Johann Johannsson is a prominent figure in Icelandic contemporary artistic community. After all, he's one of the co-founders (along with Kira Kira and Hilmar Jensson) behind Kitchen Motors, "a think tank, a record label, and an art collective specializing in instigating collaborations and putting on concerts, exhibitions, performances, chamber operas, producing films, books and radio shows based on the ideals of experimentation, collaboration, the search for new art forms and the breaking down of barriers between forms, genres and disciplines." Thematically, Fordlandia continues the exploration of technology where Johannsson's last conceptual album, IBM 1401, a User's Manual (4AD, 2006) left off. Johannsson elaborates: "one of the two main threads running through [Fordlandia] is this idea of failed utopia, as represented by the [its] title - the story of the rubber plantation Henry Ford established in the Amazon in the 1920's, and his dreams of creating an idealized American town in the middle of the jungle complete with white picket fences, hamburgers and alcohol prohibition." For a detailed insight into creation of the album, including a commentary on each individual track (!!!), you absolutely must visit Johannsson's web site. Fordlandia thus becomes a second installment in a series of works documenting human hunger for ideals, technological progress, doomed failures, and the beauty of nature reclaiming itself. Such it is still, music for the born and the departed. Highly recommended! Undoubtedly one of the best albums of 2008.
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