Track Listing

1. Fordlandia
2. Melodia (i)
3. Rocket Builder The (Io Pan)
4. Melodia (ii)
5. Fordlandia Aerial View
6. Melodia (iii)
7. Chimaerica
8. Melodia (iv)
9. Great God Pan Is Dead
10. Melodia (Guidelines For A Propulsion Device Based On Heim'sQuantum Theory)
11. How We Left Fordlandia

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12301 in Music
• Released on: 2008-11-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .16 pounds

CD Description
Johann Johannsson's second album in a conceptual trilogy about American technology (the first being IBM 1401, A USER'S MANUAL), 2008's FORDLANDIA finds the lauded Icelandic composer once again working his mesmerizing modern-classical magic. Closest in its sweeping orchestral scale to his own gorgeous ENGLABORN, the recording features tracks inspired by automagnate Henry Ford's ill-fated Brazilian settlement, including the majestic title track and "The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!)," an achingly melancholy piece.

Customer Reviews

Magnificent
This is the second in Johann's planned trilogy based on technology and picks up where the truly stunning IBM 1401, A User's Manual (released in 2006) left off. A modern classical masterpiece - I find it inconceivable that anyone would give this less than five stars! Sweeping strings, delightful electronic bursts, soaring harmonies that can't but help yank one's emotions all over the place. Anyone lucky enough to see Joahnn's live gig at the Union Chapel in the summer 2008 will know what a building-shaking, emotion-shattering talent this guy is.

Utopia Reimagined
Johann Johannsson is not afraid of harmony.
With 'Fordlandia' we could believe concinnity to be
his raison d'etre given its glowing prominence
in this truly beautiful work.

It's high concept stuff (ie Henry Ford's unrealised
dream of creating a little piece of hometown USA in
the Amazonian jungle to produce rubber in the 1920s!)
but never anything less than accessible and memorable.

The project follows a programmatic (but non-literal)
course subdivided by a series of interludes described as
'melodia' by the composer. Their relationship to the
main narrative is ambiguous but thematically coherent.

Traditional orchestral instrumentation and electronic
elements are subtely and unobtrusively integrated into
the dense fabric of the compositional tapestry.

Opening track 'Fordlandia' gives up its magic slowly in
gently rising waves of rich string orchestration.
The relatively simple thematic material holds our
attention in an almost hypnotic way. It is as though
we are lifted up above the subject and borne through
the clouds to a point where we can attain the clearest
view of the whole. Music of true vision.

The string quartet on 'Fordlandia - Ariel View',
with its haunting, ethereal melody, gives us a more
intimate experience of what flying might be like if
only we had wings.

The pipe organ deployed on the brief but elegaic 'Chimaerica'
is gradually undermined by jarring electrical interference.
A sense of an ancient world coming under attack from the present.

The use of the choir in 'The Great God Pan Is Dead' is
a beautifully realised textural idea.

'Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device Based
On Heim's Quantum Theory)' makes use of half-heard internal
rhythms which shift in and out of the blissfully sustained
orchestral ostinato. The piece builds gradually until it
reaches a marvelously uplifting coda.

The concluding segment 'How We Left Fordlandia' is full of
melancholy and longing. An achingly sad depiction of the loss
of one man's dream vividly reimagined by another.


With 'Fordlandia' Mr Johannsson has created
a work of sublime and epic invention.

Essential.

Fordtastic

Found this on a web forum and gave it a try, astouding music. Look for it on youtube then buy it, Gods theme music (if there was one, a God that is)