Interview with Jóhann Jóhannsson in Veto (Independent Student Magazine February 2009)

Herlinde Hiele interviewed Icelandic musician Jóhann Jóhannsson (who performed @ STUK venue, Leuven, Belgium recently) for student magazine Veto.
Here's a translation I made of the last 2 Q & A's:
Veto: Your music is a fusion between classic and electronic music. Which was your first love?
Jóhann Jóhannson: «When I grew up, I listened to many different things. My parents listened to classic music and my three older sisters loved rock music. I grew up inbetween. But my roots are in rock music, I played electric guitar in different bands. Later on I started working with acoustic, classic instruments, a natural evolution. I don't consider my music as classic music. My music is just modern, contemporary music, that contains classic and electronic elements. I try to make a synthesis of many things and by doing that to create something new. Indeed my standard to make an album is to do something that hasn't done before, something I never heard before.»
Veto: A lot of the experimental music these days comes from Iceland. Do you have any idea why that is?
Jóhannson: «Iceland is a good place to make art. It is a close community, that makes that there is a big collaboration between the different art forms. On the other hand many countries have a long musical history, we start nearly from nothing. Artists in Iceland feel more free, they can create with more freedom because nobody did it before. This uninhibitedness is a good attitude, although sometimes maybe a bit presumptuous.»
"Sun's Gone Dim"
www.youtube.com/v/nq9G5hgWDkY&hl&fmt=18

www.johannjohannsson.com
Source: Veto 16. February 2009
www.veto.be/veto/veto3514/JOHAN.html