Johann Johannsson

In my solo work on my own albums, I have used voice synthesizers and vocoders quite a lot in connection with orchestral instruments.

I think that the essence of being an artist is to break rules. You have to learn rules, and you have to break them, because if you make art only by the rules, then you make very boring art.

There's very little synthesized sound in the 'Arrival' score. There are a couple of synthesized beats in there, but 99 percent of the sounds in there are acoustic in origin and either played or sung by a musician or a singer and recorded in a room.

I was completely fascinated by the studio process and layering sounds and creating soundscapes out of layering massive squalls of sound.

I don't want to make light of the importance of my musical upbringing, as you cannot avoid being influenced by the area you grow up, but I will say that Reykjavik's geography is very different from, say, New York, Paris, or Copenhagen. There's big skies. The buildings are low. The landscape is spread out.

I'm a huge fan of Philip K. Dick.

To be honest, I don't particularly see myself as an Icelandic artist. I'm a European artist.

I don't really take vacations.

I always do very detailed demos. I feel that it's better to show the director a demo that sounds as close to the final thing as possible with samples. It takes time to create, but I feel that it's better to get the director on board very early on in terms of the sounds that I have in my head.

I'm very interested in voice synthesis and vocoders in general.

I think there's very little interesting in art that is not transgressive in some way. And I don't think that's a very revolutionary thing to say.

Pan Sonic sound like they are playing music of the future made with the electric instruments of yesterday.

I love 'Treasure.' It's one of my favourite albums.

A lot of my music tends to combine electronics and orchestra.

The kind of industrial wasteland that you see in so much of Europe has a tremendous poignancy to me, especially when it's run down and you see the collapse and failure of this system. And also how nature reclaims it.

It's very common in Iceland, this music-making and artistic expression by non-professionals. The brass band tradition is not as big, but there are choirs everywhere. So that's something that is familiar to me.

There's something quite shocking in this idea that everything is disposable and that people don't care for things anymore.

The idea that things should last just doesn't fit the economic model anymore.

I'm far from casual. I'm a huge fan of 'Blade Runner.'

I think it took me until - my twenties were really a time of exploration and experimentation with different groups and different types of music. Then I kind of developed the sound, which first appeared, I guess, on my first solo album 'Englaborn,' which came out in 2001.

I get restless very easily; I don't like to do the same thing twice.

I tend to spend quite a lot of time on the film scores that I do.

For me, what people generally call sound design is just one component of orchestrating a score.

There are some stunning visual moments in 'Arrival' that are out of this world, but it's all on the earth, and it's about an academic, a woman that is dealing with a personal tragedy, but there's a circular view of time that makes things more complicated.

I always relish the idea of collaborating with the director on creating the sound world, the sound spectrum, and the sound environment of the film. I use every means at my disposal to create a score that is as strong and powerful to enhance the director's vision for the film.

I tend to get hired because the filmmakers like what I do, so there's usually not that much conflict about the direction.

My first album, 'Englaborn,' was based on music originally written for the theatre. My solo albums, like 'IBM 1401, a User's Manual' and 'Fordlandia,' have also had narratives attached to them.

I started out writing music for theatre and contemporary dance, so there has always been a dramatic and narrative element in my music.

With 'The Theory of Everything,' it seems that people really like the voice I've found with the music, which is great. But I may not do that again. Every project is different.

If you look at my career, you'll find that the same record doesn't show up more than once. I try to challenge myself with every project.

Even when I was studying piano, I always preferred to play around with my own improvisations rather than do my studies. So I've always been interested in writing music from a very early age.

I very much enjoy working with talented filmmakers who have a good sense for music, who have a strong feel for music and for what music can do in a film.

Film is a collaborative medium, and I very much enjoy that.

When I'm writing film music, I feel like I'm more a filmmaker than a composer. It's more about what the film needs. I'm basically part of the team that's creating a film, and the music is a very important part, but it's just one part of many.

When I work on films, I like to be involved from as early as possible. I think this is really good and beneficial in terms of absorbing the atmosphere of the film and for the music to become a part of the DNA of the film.

The drone is a very fundamental part of my music, although it's not always present.

I like to work with people that I find interesting and stimulating artistically, and the field in which they're perceived to work is secondary and not that relevant to me.

The more effort you put into something, the more you get out of it.

I am not very extreme in my life. But I'm very attracted to art that works with extremes and works with limits, that transgresses limits and transcends limits and crosses borders and has a certain boldness.

I don't watch TV that much, but I like to get series on DVD and watch them all back-to-back.

One very early influence was reading about John Cage's experience in an anechoic room where the only sound you are left with is the high-pitched drone of your nervous system.

Making 'Orphee' has been a true labour of love, one that has been a part of my life for six years, and yet the music always remained fresh - it was constantly in a state of flux and renewal.

'Orphee' is, for me, about changes: about moving to a new city, leaving behind an old life in Copenhagen, and building a new one in Berlin - about the death of old relationships and the birth of new ones.

When I write music for a film, I'm not writing a solo album, and I'm not writing a personal piece. I'm part of a team of artists. So I think like a filmmaker more than a composer.

I'm interested in extremes, in many ways.

Music should resonate with people on an emotional level. That's one of the criterions I use for an idea. Does it speak simply and directly without obfuscation and without being unnecessarily complex or obscure?

I think my music is a way of communicating very directly with people and with people's emotions. I try to make music that doesn't need layers of complexity or obfuscation to speak to people.

Melancholy is a state that I very much enjoy being in, actually. It's not the same as feeling sad. It's a more complex emotion; it derives from a tragic view of the world, a tragic view of art.

I think melancholy is kind of a misunderstood emotion. I don't think it's necessarily an unpleasant or bad emotion.

I think I have a sound or a certain feel in certain harmonies in the way I construct melodies.