Englabörn

TRACK LIST
1. Odi Et Amo
2. Englabörn
3. Jói & Karen
4. Thetta Gerist á Bestu Bœjum
5. Sálfræðingur
6. Eg sleppi þér aldrei
7. Sálfræðingur Deyr
8. Ba∂
9. Ég heyrði allt án þess að hlusta
10. Karen býr til engil
11. Englabörn – tilbrigði
12. Ég átti gráa æsku
13. Krókódill
14. Ef ég hefði aldrei…
15. …eins og venjulegt fólk
16. Odi Et Amo – Bis

Englabörn is Jóhann’s first solo album. It is derived from music he wrote for an Icelandic play of the same name. For the CD release on Touch, the music was revised and restructured to make it stand as a work on its own and not simply function as a collection of cues. The music is written for string quartet, piano, organ, glockenspiel and percussion. These elements were processed and manipulated, adding delicate electronic backgrounds to the otherwise entirely acoustic recordings.

One song, Odi et Amo, is a setting of Catullus’ famous poem. He says “This was a happy accident; I’d written the music and wanted a computerized counter-tenor vocal singing a Latin text and was looking through a collection of Latin poetry when I remembered this poem from college and it did fit the melody perfectly and was also thematically perfect for the play. It’s in the final scene. What I really like about it is the harsh contrast of the computer voice and the strings, the alchemy of total opposites, the sewing machine and umbrella on a dissecting table.”