1 Week to TES Official Launch + Top 10 Jóhann Jóhannsson Tracks, Part II – ES09

TES09

I’ll be hosting a live event on Tuesday, July 29th at 6pm PST to officially launch The Escaping Society.
Huge thanks to everyone who’s already joined — it’s exciting to finally have a dedicated space where we can interact together.

I’ve started posting in the AP Archives, and I’m currently working on a score reduction and analysis of a passage from John Williams’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for The Conservatory to coincide with our Book Club reading of the forthcoming Williams biography. More to come soon — I can’t wait to show you what’s in the works.

Until then...

Listen on the playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson • abandone... Part 5/ The Sun's Gone Dim A... PREVIEW   ​

Wedged in the middle of a blood-soaked, revenge-laden killing spree is the love theme from Mandy, featuring guitarist Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))), an American drone metal band formed in 1998 in Seattle. The band is known for its distinctive visual style and slow, heavy sound. It may sound menacing, but the aptly titled “Love Theme” is an extremely delicate and tender piece, offering the film’s lead—played by Nicolas Cage—a moment to mourn his lost love before avenging her death.

Arrival—Jóhann Jóhannsson’s third and final collaboration with Denis Villeneuve—is my favorite of his scores. Given the film’s focus on language and communication, Jóhannsson immediately recognized that the human voice would need to play a central role in the music. He also employed tape loops to mirror the film’s recurring circular motifs, most notably the logograms that form the aliens’ written language. Using a 16-track analog tape recorder, he created long loops layered with piano drones—sustained tones without the initial attack—recorded at various speeds and then slowed down, resulting in a haunting, otherworldly texture.

Jóhannsson was originally attached to score Blade Runner 2049 (2017) as well, but was replaced partway through production by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch. Though it’s said he composed early material, none of it made it into the final cut. Still—after hearing Arrival—can you imagine what Jóhannsson might have done with Blade Runner?

For a more in depth discussion, there is an excellent interview with Jóhannsson on the Song Exploder podcast: https://songexploder.net/arrival​

Another collaboration with Denis Villeneuve, Sicario features a screenplay by Taylor Sheridan and marks one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most visceral and tension-laden scores. Given the film’s intense subject matter—a brutal exploration of the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border—Jóhannsson incorporated percussion and rhythmic elements early in the compositional process to build a sense of mounting dread.

One of the most striking cues, “The Beast,” is constructed from minimal, sparse elements, yet it’s precisely this restraint that makes the piece so unsettling. Jóhannsson recorded much of the orchestral material live, then meticulously edited and manipulated those recordings to craft the final score.

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s first collaboration with Denis Villeneuve, Prisoners, is marked by a score that evokes a sense of gothic dread, primal violence, and looming danger. Jóhannsson referred to "The Lord’s Prayer" as one of the most challenging pieces to compose—not because of its complexity, but because of its deceptive simplicity. To find the right expression, he isolated himself on a remote island in northern Iceland, home to just 20 residents, and rewrote the theme fifteen times before arriving at the final version.

For Jóhannsson, the music was about creating what he called “a kind of poetic and lyrical counterpoint to the horror of the events depicted in the film.” As he explained, “While the action is terrifying and horrific, the music has this beauty and fragility and lyricism which, in a strange way, amplifies the effect the film has on you.”

Want to Chat Music (or just chat)?​
If you’d like to go deeper into music, creativity, composing or songwriting, I offer private lessons and discussions over Zoom.

$75.00 45 Minute Zoom Call Let's talk for 45 minutes. You can ask questions, talk about Abandoned Pools, take lessons on guitar, electric bass,... Read more Book Now

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Thanks for reading,

Tommy

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