In the long distant past, an earlier (more analogue) incarnation of LR2 had the privilege of releasing two eps by a then little known Icelandic band called The Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. Their fuzz fuelled interpretation of the Blondie classic ‘Heart of Glass’ gained them a slew of rave reviews in the music press of the day and multiple plays on the radio from legendary DJ John Peel.
The person at the heart of that band was none other than Jóhann Jóhannsson, who would go on to become a celebrated composer, producer and creator of Oscar nominated film soundtracks. It’s sometimes hard to connect the two, but later Daisy Hill Puppy Farm recordings showed the nascent talents of someone who had an incredible aptitude for creating an immersive soundworld which you could lose yourself inside.
The music, from the earliest punk blasts to the evolving soundscapes of works like Fordlandia, speak for themselves. But since his untimely death in 2018, the process has begun of researching and documenting both the career and the working methods of an artist who transported his left-field approach to film scoring over to Hollywood and helped to change the landscape and role of film music.
The Creative Space of Jóhann Jóhannsson is a rich and comprehensive book about the late composer’s career, which ended in international success but started in gray and gloomish Reykjavík in 1985, when the composer bought his first keyboard and started exploring the magic of music and sound. To get this ambitious project off the ground, the writers and researchers behind this book (and with a planned film documentary to follow) have launched a crowdfunding project. This is a chance to get involved in helping to support their work and to gain access to a selection of funding rewards based around a first edition of the book with a limited print run of only 1000 copies.
The crowdfunder will be running until 7th July, 2021 and for full information on what rewards are on offer, what the project entails and how you can support, simply head to the following link
To keep updated on all future developments, please also follow through the project’s official Facebook page