Johann Johannsson: IBM 1401, A User’s Manual
Johann Johannsson is adding to the list of great albums from Iceland that have floated into the indie rock embrace with the release of IBM 1401, A User's Manual. The story behind this album is so compelling that someone should write a children's book to compliment the album.
As the story goes, Johann's father (Johann Gunnarsson) was an IBM computer technician, working on the IBM 1401 mainframe computer forty years ago. Being a musician, Johann Gunnarsson discovered that "the computer's memory emitted strong electromagnetic waves and by programming the memory in a certain way and by placing a radio receiver next to it, melodies could be coaxed out – captured by the receiver as a delicate, melancholy sine-wave tone." Before the computer was replaced in 1971 with a newer model, Johann Gunnarsson recorded the computer's sounds and melodies on a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Inspired by the melodies and sentimental beauty of the story, Johann Johannsson wrote a movement for a string quartet "to be performed by a string quartet as the accompaniment to a dance piece by the choreographer Erna Ómarsdóttir." Johannsson performed A User's Manual in 40 cities in Europe before recording the album for 4AD Records. His message is that "we should not fear the machines, but care for them, embrace them with the same sense of wonder as we do our own children."
IBM 1401, A Users Manual track listing:
01 Part 1 – IBM 1401 Processing Unit
02 Part 2 – IBM 1403 Printer
03 Part 3 – IBM 1402 Card Read-Punch
04 Part 4 – IBM 729 II Magnetic Tape Unit
05 Part 5 – The Sun´s Gone Dim and the Sky´s Turned Black
Johann Johannsson – The Sun's Gone Dim (edit)
Johann Johannsson on:
Emusic // Elbo.ws // YouTube