ORPHEE (Not OST)

Prolific and critically acclaimed composer Johann Johannsson releases his DG debut album.

ORPHEE is his highly anticipated new studio album the first in 6 years!

Johannssons genre-blending score represents all facets of his previous works from intimate string quartet pieces, to large string orchestra works, featuring electronics, drones, organ, piano, choir, as well as enigmatic shortwave broadcasts to create an evocative & immersive sound.

I started writing this album in 2009, using a number of simple contrapuntal themes. I began to reshape and transfigure these ideas, writing many different variations. These renderings slowly mutated over time in a process of deconstruction and re-assembly, to the extent that the original versions began to fade into the darker corners of my hard disk. Unlike many of my previous albums, this one didnt start out with a conceptual or narrative theme binding the music together. Rather, the music seemed to be waiting for its form, for its momentum. Johann Johannsson

ORPHEE is a melancholic, yet optimistic musical journey inspired by the Orpheus myth Orpheus rising from the underworld, trying to escape darkness into the light.

Orphee was for me about moving to a new city, breaking up old relationships and beginning new ones, leaving behind an old life in Copenhagen and building a new one in Berlin. I think thats why I gravitated to Ovids version of the Orpheus myth, which tells of death, rebirth and an artist s search for truth. This album is an oblique reflection on personal change. Release Date: 2017.4.26

1. FLIGHT FROM THE CITY
2. A SONG FOR EUROPA
3. THE DROWNED WORLD
4. A DEAL WITH CHAOS
5. A PILE OF DUST
6. A SPARROW ALIGHTED UPON OUR SHOULDER
7. FRAGMENT I
8. BY THE ROES. AND BY THE HINDS OF THE FIELD BY THE ROES. AND BY THE HINDS OF THE FIELD
9. THE RADIANT CITY
10. FRAGMENT II
11. THE BURNING MOUNTAIN
12. DE LUCE ET UMBRA
13. GOOD MORNING. MIDNIGHT
14. GOOD NIGHT. DAY
15. ORPHIC HYMN