Listen to your favorite songs from IBM 1401 A User's Manual by Johann Johannsson Now. Stream ad-free with Amazon Music Unlimited on mobile, desktop, and tablet. Download our mobile app now. Review Summary: Johann Johannsson's 'IBM 1401, A User's Manual' is a warm, beautiful exposition of the potential of artificial intelligence and the future of ethics in relation to our computerized companions. For parents, hearing your newborn cry for the first time may qualify as the most. Referencing IBM 1401, A User's Manual, CD, Album, CAD 2609 CD According to the famous hypothesis, no more than six degrees of separation can stand between an individual and any of their fellow homo sapiens. But how then does this account for anomalies in the system such as Reykjavik's Johann Johannsson?
In the 20th and into the 21st century, minimalism spread over practically all elements of music. Distortion came around, the back beat took precedence, and things got a lot simpler and noisier on the whole. At some point around the mid-20th century, popular music became completely disjointed from what we now call 'classical music.' There was really no overt point of connection between the highly compact and comparatively labyrinthine forms. So much harmonic territory had been tread in the last hundred years that the forward-thinking modern composer was almost forced to explore things like spatial relationships and extreme variances of tone within their music. The new composers' 'genre' grew steadily until it was truly classifiable. It also grew to the point where, some might say, anything with strings and without a back beat was considered modern composition. IBM 1401, A User's Manual doesn't have a back beat and is littered with strings, but will immediately refute any claims of lacking integrity. On it we see the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson coming into his own, and in some ways bursting notions about what modern composition should or shouldn't be.
The themes of IBM 1401, A User's Manual, are derived from Jóhannsson's father, who worked for IBM in the '60s, when the 1401 model came into production. By altering electromagnetic waves via the computer's programmed memory, melodies were, in Jóhannsson's words, 'coaxed out' of the machine. The proceeding album blends lush, orchestral compositions around a host of these old IBM melodies. Unsurprisingly, an immediate sense of nostalgia is established through each theme's unrelenting consonance. Four of the five 'movements' begin with strings that lumber alongside understated electronics, constantly building and resolving tension. In the minimalist tradition, chords are stretched out through slow arpeggios that seem to ascend endlessly, but never abandon the tonic. Such structural elongation bears breathtaking results that are achieved simply, beautifully, and with little fanfare. Only the User's Manual's last piece breaks from the IBM motif with heightened rhythmic and harmonic movement. Some might say the finale's comparative dynamism depreciates everything preceding it, but with a runtime of only 42 minutes, the album feels completely interdependent when considered as a whole. Even when a computerized voice enters, methodically relaying computer maintenance instructions, the dense harmonies that eventually surface reinforce an overall emotional concept.
In a sense, Jóhannsson's album is a eulogy for the first generation of synthetic intelligence. It reaches beyond most notions of form into the conceptual territory, expounding on another modernist tradition of indistinguishably linking music with other aspects of art and society. That may be a bit much for the casual listener to swallow, but the sheer nuance, depth, and restrained beauty of the piece deserves acknowledgment at the very least.
1. Part I2. Part II3. Part III4. Part IV5. Part V
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Boomkat Product Review:
Never before pressed on vinyl, IBM 1401, A User's Manual, is one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most loved works. Released in 2006, the decade since its release has seen Jóhann establish himself as one of the most important composers in the World today, most notably scoring movies such as Arrival, Sicario and The Theory of Everything.
:Inspired by the work his father did in the sixties when chief maintenance engineer of one of Iceland’s first computers, Jóhann originally wrote IBM 1401, A User's Manual to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator and friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For this album release, he rewrote it for a sixty-piece string orchestra, with a new final movement (built around a poem by Dorothy Parker) and incorporating both electronics, and reel-to-reel recordings made by his father and friends in 1971 of an enormous IBM 1401 mainframe computer singing the hymn Ísland Ögrum Skoriðby Sigvaldi Kaldalóns as it was being decommissioned.
The first ever pressing of IBM 1401, A User's Manual comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, having been reworked by Chris Bigg (v23) from his original design. Pressed on clear vinyl, two album tracks recorded in 2010 with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Rudolfinum, Dvorák Hall in Prague have also been added and are exclusive to this release:
Boomkat Product Review:
Never before pressed on vinyl, IBM 1401, A User's Manual, is one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most loved works. Released in 2006, the decade since its release has seen Jóhann establish himself as one of the most important composers in the World today, most notably scoring movies such as Arrival, Sicario and The Theory of Everything.
:Inspired by the work his father did in the sixties when chief maintenance engineer of one of Iceland’s first computers, Jóhann originally wrote IBM 1401, A User's Manual to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator and friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For this album release, he rewrote it for a sixty-piece string orchestra, with a new final movement (built around a poem by Dorothy Parker) and incorporating both electronics, and reel-to-reel recordings made by his father and friends in 1971 of an enormous IBM 1401 mainframe computer singing the hymn Ísland Ögrum Skoriðby Sigvaldi Kaldalóns as it was being decommissioned.
The first ever pressing of IBM 1401, A User's Manual comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, having been reworked by Chris Bigg (v23) from his original design. Pressed on clear vinyl, two album tracks recorded in 2010 with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Rudolfinum, Dvorák Hall in Prague have also been added and are exclusive to this release:
Boomkat Product Review:
Never before pressed on vinyl, IBM 1401, A User's Manual, is one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most loved works. Released in 2006, the decade since its release has seen Jóhann establish himself as one of the most important composers in the World today, most notably scoring movies such as Arrival, Sicario and The Theory of Everything.
:Inspired by the work his father did in the sixties when chief maintenance engineer of one of Iceland’s first computers, Jóhann originally wrote IBM 1401, A User's Manual to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator and friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For this album release, he rewrote it for a sixty-piece string orchestra, with a new final movement (built around a poem by Dorothy Parker) and incorporating both electronics, and reel-to-reel recordings made by his father and friends in 1971 of an enormous IBM 1401 mainframe computer singing the hymn Ísland Ögrum Skoriðby Sigvaldi Kaldalóns as it was being decommissioned.
The first ever pressing of IBM 1401, A User's Manual comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, having been reworked by Chris Bigg (v23) from his original design. Pressed on clear vinyl, two album tracks recorded in 2010 with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Rudolfinum, Dvorák Hall in Prague have also been added and are exclusive to this release:
Back in stock - First ever vinyl pressing of this classic - Deluxe gatefold clear vinyl 2LP. Includes two bonus tracks and download code.
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Johann Johannsson Ibm 1401 A User's Manual Free
Never before pressed on vinyl, IBM 1401, A User's Manual, is one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most loved works. Released in 2006, the decade since its release has seen Jóhann establish himself as one of the most important composers in the World today, most notably scoring movies such as Arrival, Sicario and The Theory of Everything.
:Inspired by the work his father did in the sixties when chief maintenance engineer of one of Iceland’s first computers, Jóhann originally wrote IBM 1401, A User's Manual to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator and friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For this album release, he rewrote it for a sixty-piece string orchestra, with a new final movement (built around a poem by Dorothy Parker) and incorporating both electronics, and reel-to-reel recordings made by his father and friends in 1971 of an enormous IBM 1401 mainframe computer singing the hymn Ísland Ögrum Skoriðby Sigvaldi Kaldalóns as it was being decommissioned.
Johann Johannsson Ibm 1401 A User's Manual Download
The first ever pressing of IBM 1401, A User's Manual comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, having been reworked by Chris Bigg (v23) from his original design. Pressed on clear vinyl, two album tracks recorded in 2010 with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Rudolfinum, Dvorák Hall in Prague have also been added and are exclusive to this release: