Post-rock is a genre of music which uses rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes; using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords. This particular blog is run by a young fellow from Southern California. He doesn't post very often these days. He still checks in often though, and writes in the third person as well.
So I ran into Jónsi, Alex, and Jóhann Jóhannsson at the movies last night...
Hello again, Tumblr. It's been a little while, hasn't it? I am fortunate enough to be returning with another story. And news. Jónsi news, Alex news, and Jónsi & Alex news. And of course, pictures.
So. Last night, I attended Jóhann Jóhannsson's live scoring of the film "The Miners' Hymns" by Bill Morrison, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Bill Morrison's films are composed of various archival footage, which he cuts together, specifically to be accompanied by a live score (this information will be important later). Jóhann Jóhannsson first performed about 30 minutes of his own music, with a string quartet, before the live scoring, where he and the string quartet were joined by an 18-piece brass ensemble. God, do live strings and horns sound amazing. Even though it doesn't do last night any justice, he's a clip from the film, if you'd like to get an idea of what I'm talking about. The whole performance was fantastic.
But of course, the entire time I was there, I was looking for Jónsi and Alex. I had yet to spot them. After the performance, I walked up and down the foyer, initially making two laps around it. I started on a third, thinking, "if I don't see them this time, they must not be here." However, just as I was on my way out, on that third lap, the two of them walked past me with a group of other people. Naturally, I immediately turned around, where I ran into UCLA's Art Director, who probably saw me wandering around aimlessly. We had a fantastic talk about art, music, and life, and she then asked if I would like to come back with her and meet everyone. I of course agreed, and followed her into another room. The musicians were there, Jóhann Jóhannsson was there, and Jónsi and Alex were there, all hanging out, chatting, and... drinking.
I first talked to Jóhann Jóhannsson, who was extremely nice. I asked him a few random things, he told me about how they only had two days to rehearse the entire performance, and so on.
I talked to some of the musicians, trying to wait for an opportunity where Alex wasn't already talking to someone else. Meanwhile, Jónsi was deep in Icelandic conversation with someone else, right behind me.
I saw my opportunity, and went to talk to Alex. I'm sure I sounded like a fool. I said something along the lines of, "I don't mean to intimidate you, but you and your productions are everything I aspire to be." He thanked me a bunch, said that was very nice of me to say, and we got to talking about Julianna Barwick's and some other albums, and he said that he just finished producing an album by a girl from Seattle, but now I can't remember her name. Nonetheless, he said that the album should be coming out some time soon. I said that it would make my day if I could get a picture with him and Jónsi together. He said of course, if you can find Jónsi. I said that I've waited for Jónsi before, and then told him about when I waited outside of the venue after a Sigur Rós show for three hours, before walking back inside, and finding them still partying at one in the morning (see here if you are not already familiar with that story). He said, "I'm sure things had gotten pretty silly by the time you found them." He knows. I mean, of course he knows, but, you know. He knows.
A minute or two later, I turn around, and Jónsi and I nearly crash into each other by accident. I said hi, Jónsi laughed, I asked if he remembered me from that Santa Barbara show, to which he replied, "yeah yeah, I remember!" I asked how he was, he said he was "really good." I asked why they were in LA. Here's the scoop:
1. Jónsi and Alex are doing a score for another one of Bill Morrison's films (which will be amazing if last night was any indication).
2. Jónsi is recording for How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Alex was nearby, so we took our pictures. One of Sigur Rós' photographers was there with them that night, so he took the pictures with my phone. Jónsi made a joke, saying something like, "he (the photographer) is verrry expensive!" which everyone in their group laughed at. It must have been an inside joke, but it was funny to hear Jónsi even say that. That got everyone smiling so the pictures came out good.
The photographer took one, and he saw that Jónsi was closing his eyes, and he said, "oh, Jónsi!" and then everyone else said "oh, Jónsi!" (another inside joke or something, I don't know, everyone was laughing). Also, Alex says "banana" instead of "cheese" when he's having his picture taken.
But anyways, it was really great, really fun and relaxed. Easily the best Valentine's Day of my life.
One last thing, Jónsi was buying drinks, and he had a wallet, with American money, and I thought that was really funny, for some reason. Haha. I don't know.
I haven't posted anything in forever but I need to show off
This is a piece of melted film from Thursday night's Godspeed You! Black Emperor show in Hollywood, given to me by their remarkably friendly projectionist, Karl Lemieux.
I did some things and transcribed this. I wish I could just post the video but that is proving to be quite difficult. So. Here's this in the mean time.
1. (Regarding Kveikur vs. Valtari and how close they are to each other) With Valtari, we didn't go into a studio and record the album, it's really a collection of recordings from over the years, some as old as 2005. We were writing Kveikur material while we were compiling Valtari.
2. (Regarding how different Kveikur is) We never intentionally make something different, it always just happens naturally. The difference with Kveikur is that one, for the first time, we were a three piece band, and two, we produced the record ourselves, which we have never done before. Throughout the recording, we always seemed to be pushing each other, to take things further and more outside the box.
3. (Regarding Kjartan) The biggest change with Kjartan leaving the band is the dynamic between each other is entirely different. I'm not 100% sure how the dynamics have changed, but they definitely have. The one thing I can say is that there is a lot more communication between us now.
4. (Regarding Lyrics) The lyrics are always the last thing that we write for the music. The lyrics are inspired by the music itself, the instrumental music. We make the music, and then we listen back to it, and write the lyrics at that point.
5. (Regarding the lyric video for Isjaki) It was actually something that was suggested to us by our manager. Though, we're tired of people getting the lyrics wrong for our music (he might have been joking).
6. (Regarding the Brennisteinn video) We always imagined this... beast, or this monster, waking up, stretching, and maybe yawning.
7. (Regarding the Valtari Film Experiment) We were very interested in seeing / hearing other people's interpretation of our music, but we have no plans to do it again.
8. (What have you been listening to lately?) Led Zeppelin and Spiritualized.
My favorite thing about the Valtari version of Varðeldur / Lúppulagið is the inhale that you can hear right before the part with the bells comes in. Like, there's no apparent (to me) vocal element, or anything like that, in that part, and yet there's this inhale... I love that. So much.
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