Jóhann Jóhannsson / Orphée
Artist Jóhann Jóhannsson
Album Title: Orphée
Album Cover:
Primary Genre Electronic
Format CD
Released 09/16/2016
Label Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Catalog No 00289 479 6021 GH
Bar Code No 0 28947 96021 8
Packaging Cardboard Gatefold
Tracks
1. Flight From The City (6:31)
2. A Song For Europa (2:34)
3. The Drowned World (2:21)
4. A Deal With Chaos (2:06)
5. A Pile Of Dust (4:51)
6. A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder (2:27)
7. Fragment I (1:25)
8. By The Roes, And By The Hinds Of The Field (2:39)
9. The Radiant City (3:31)
10. Fragment II (2:12)
11. The Burning Mountain (2:46)
12. De Luce Et Umbra (2:29)
13. Good Morning, Midnight (3:18)
14. Good Night, Day (3:58)
15. Orphic Hymn (3:27)
Date Acquired 01/10/2017
Personal Rating
Acquired from Amazon
Purchase Price 12.79

Web Links

All Music Guide entry:
Discogs entry:
MusicBrainz entry:

Notes

? 2016 Jóhann Jóhannsson, under exclusive license to Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Stralauer Allee 1, 10245 Berlin A Universal Music Company
Total time: 46:34 • Made in the E.U.
String orchestra recorded at AIR Studios, Lyndhurst Hall, London
Pipe organ recorded at Sct. Lukas Kirke, Copenhagen
Choir recorded at Danmarks Radio, Copenhagen
String quartet, cello, organ and piano recorded at various studios in Copenhagen, Berlin and Reykjavík between 2009 and 2016
Mixed at Vox-Ton Recording Studio, Berlin
Publisher: Mute Song Limited (ASCAP)
Issued in a gatefold cardboard wallet, includes a 12-page booklet.
Cat# listed with GH suffix on cover, without suffix on disc.

Arranged By [Arrangements], Orchestrated By [Orchestrations] – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Bass Vocals, Baritone Vocals – Jakob Bloch Jespersen, Jakob Soelberg
Booklet Editor – Jens Schünemeyer
Cello – Clarice Jensen, Hildur Guðnadóttir
Choir – Theatre Of Voices
Conductor [Choir] – Paul Hillier
Conductor [Orchestra] – Anthony Weeden
Coordinator [Project Manager, For Deutsche Grammophon] – Burkhard Bartsch, Leonie Petersen
Cover, Artwork – Anders Ladegaard
Engineer [Recording Engineer] – Francesco Donadello, Geoff Foster, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mette Due, Preben Iwan, Ívar Ragnarsson
Ensemble – American Contemporary Music Ensemble*
Executive-Producer [For Deutsche Grammophon] – Christian Badzura
Management – Tim Husom
Mastered By – Calyx Mastering
Mezzo-soprano Vocals – Elenor Wiman, Ellen Marie Brink Christensen*, Kristin Mulders, Signe Asmussen
Mixed By – Francesco Donadello
Orchestra – AIR Lyndhurst String Orchestra*
Orchestrated By [Additional Orchestrations] – Anthony Weeden, Owen Roberts
Photography By [Centrefold Photo] – Jónatan Grétarsson
Piano, Electronics, Organ [Pipe Organ], Organ [Electric Organs] – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Producer, Written-By, Liner Notes – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Soprano Vocals – Else Torp*
Tenor Vocals – Chris Watson (7), Paul Bentley-Angell
Viola – Ben Russell
Violin – Caleb Burhans, Yuki Numata Resnick
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Licensed To – Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Made By – EDC, Germany – 53967092
Published By – Mute Song Ltd.
Recorded At – Air Lyndhurst Hall
Recorded At – Sct. Lukas Kirke, Copenhagen
Recorded At – Danmarks Radio Studios
Mixed At – Vox-Ton

================================================================================
foobar2000 1.3.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-01-11 19:41:38

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Jóhann Jóhannsson / Orphée
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DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR12      -0.90 dB   -16.76 dB      6:31 01-Flight From The City
DR10      -0.47 dB   -17.64 dB      2:34 02-A Song For Europa
DR9        -1.29 dB   -14.26 dB      2:21 03-The Drowned World
DR11      -4.19 dB   -22.16 dB      2:06 04-A Deal With Chaos
DR11      -1.76 dB   -18.12 dB      4:51 05-A Pile Of Dust
DR12      -0.71 dB   -17.79 dB      2:27 06-A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder
DR6        -7.08 dB   -18.85 dB      1:25 07-Fragment I
DR10      -1.59 dB   -16.03 dB      2:39 08-By The Roes, And By The Hinds Of The Field
DR12      -0.96 dB   -17.56 dB      3:31 09-The Radiant City
DR10      -0.19 dB   -15.78 dB      2:12 10-Fragment II
DR10      -0.49 dB   -15.78 dB      2:46 11-The Burning Mountain
DR13      -0.15 dB   -18.32 dB      2:29 12-De Luce Et Umbra
DR14      -0.40 dB   -21.03 dB      3:18 13-Good Morning, Midnight
DR10      -1.33 dB   -16.13 dB      3:58 14-Good Night, Day
DR12      -1.11 dB   -18.60 dB      3:27 15-Orphic Hymn
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Number of tracks:  15
Official DR value: DR11

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           614 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================

Reviews
AllMusic Review by Heather Phares:
In the six years between And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees and Orphée, Jóhann Jóhannsson became a celebrated film composer, earning back-to-back Oscar nominations for his life-affirming score for The Theory of Everything and his ominous, rough-edged music for Sicario. During this time, Jóhannsson continued to work on personal projects including this, his Deustche Grammophon debut. In its own way, Orphée is also a little like a soundtrack: the composer drew inspiration from the story of Orpheus' ill-fated attempt to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld, building on Ovid and Jean Cocteau's versions of the tale in his meditations on death, rebirth, and creativity. The Orpheus myth reflected Jóhannsson's life while he worked on the album: his move from Copenhagen to Berlin marked the closing of one chapter in his life and the start of a new one.
Like And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees, Orphée is both more intimate than some of his larger works, and immediately recognizable as Jóhannsson's. On "Flight from the City," a gentle but insistent piano motif rises and falls like breath, while strings deepen its sweet ache; layers of counterpoint inspire bittersweet wonder on "The Drowned World"; "Orphic Hymn" showcases the composer's flair for choral pieces, with Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices performing lines from Ovid's text in Renaissance style; and "Fragment II" offers a brief burst of his grander scale with its ever-widening sea of drones and strings. This piece features Orphée's main motif, an ascending harmonic pattern that also appears on the ghostly "A Song for Europa," which introduces the staticky, numbers station-like recordings that flicker through the album, adding another layer of distance and mystery.
Orphée's studies in change give equal time time to mourning and hope, whether on the spine-tingling "A Pile of Dust" or the way "A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder" and "By the Roes, and by the Hinds of the Field" dance between joy and sorrow. Similarly, Jóhannsson makes the album's chiaroscuro qualities explicit on "De Luce et Umbra," where a shadowy, almost subliminal pulse adds tension to the skyward strings, and on the Emily Dickinson-inspired diptych "Good Morning, Midnight" and "Good Night, Day," where subtle transitions evoke standing between ends and beginnings. On Orphée, Jóhannsson expresses the need to let some things and people go to let new ones in with remarkable nuance, as well as the affecting beauty fans have come to know and love.
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