Amazing! Crazy! Great! I am also listening to it now - I often get pleasantly surprised from what comes from our different Nordic neighbors - especially when it comes to creative work! I think I am already a fan of the concept and the music is great! - I also work a bit with the immateriality at the moment, this is definitely opens new ways to comprehend these matters...... More links to it: IBM 1401, a User's Manual Part I - IBM 1401 Processing Unit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBw_wSoVQrY Jóhann Jóhannsson on "IBM 1401 A User's Manual" (In partly Swedish and English) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whvzDJGt-fk&feature=related 2010/8/27 Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org>:
This odd discovery brought a smile to me on a frustrating day:
http://www.amazon.com/IBM-1401-A-Users-Manual/dp/B000S5AMS2 ($4.95 download)
Summary: Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson has recorded an orchestral work inspired by and incorporating the sounds of the first IBM 1401 installed in Iceland. (Perhaps the first computer in Iceland – Petri Paju would know this…) The title is “IBM 1401 A User’s Manual”. It’s also interesting to see that the trick of generating music via radio interference long predated the microcomputers of the 1970s, as the sounds are supposed to have come from his father’s work in 1971. It’s not actually a musical, but parts were apparently used for modern dance and there are some spoken passages.
I’m playing the first track (movement?) right now, and it is deeply strange. This should put everyone in the right mood for the “Materiality and Immateriality” theme of our forthcoming workshop.
If only more Icelanders back in 2006 had put their quirky ingenuity into celebrating old technology rather than structuring financial deals….
Tom
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