Johann Johannsson is an Icelandic composer whose stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music has been quietly bewitching listeners for the last few years. His 2008 album Fordlandia weaves threads of thoughts together taking the the images of several subjects from an American magnate builds a doomed utopia in the depths of the Brazilian rainforest, a Victorian poetess laments the death of Pan, a pagan rocket scientist blows himself up in his Californian garage and a crippled German physicist draws up the equations which can make faster than light travel possible, unseen by the rest of the world. J¢hann draws these tantalising threads together, weaving a musical tapestry of hypnotic richness.
