Iceland strikes back

This is the IBM 1401 computer. 

"In October 2006, Icelandic avante-garde musician Jóhann Jóhannsson released the album 'IBM 1401, A User's Manual through music publisher 4AD. The concept is based upon work done in 1964 by his father, Jóhann Gunnarsson, chief maintenance engineer of one of the country’s first computers, and Elias Davidsson, one of the first programmers in the country. The album was originally written for a string quartet, organ and electronics and to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For the album recording, Johann has rewritten it for a sixty-piece string orchestra, adding a new final movement and incorporating electronics and vintage reel-to-reel recordings of a singing IBM 1401 found in his father’s attic."

Read the album's data, written by the artist himself. Enjoy...

Yours, Serafeim

Song of Midnight No.1

I'm in the middle of a youtube marathon right now... Watching, listening, learning... At the same time, like  all advertisers say, I'm brainstorming. About life, relationships, music, sounds, projects, dreams, hopes... I decided that my blog from now on will also feature some regular thematic sections and posts.

I just found three of them. The first one is the "Song of Midnight" series. In greek, "Το τραγούδι του Μεσονυχτίου". The second one is the "That's what I call a drum solo" series. And the third one is the "Who sampled whom" series.

This is the first "Song of Midnight" post.

I just stumbled upon the following song and was totally mesmerized.

As a listener, I always had a problem to emotionally relate  to songs written in languages other than English or Greek. There is a great Greek saying, which states that: "Ό,τι πεις, θα το λουστείς", which means something like: "Whatever you make fun of, will happen to you". That's exactly what happened to me.

Rökkurró,

are a band from Iceland. I can't seem to be able to figure out why such a small and tormented country produces such great artists and music. Bjork, Sigur Ros, Jonsi, Hilmar Jensson, Skulli Sverisson. Maybe it's something in their water. Enjoy.

Yours, Serafeim

Ps. I don't have a clue what the lyrics mean. But, I can let myself imagine.