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Track Listings
| 1. Part 1 - IBM 1401 Processing Unit |
| 2. Part 2 - IBM 1403 Printer |
| 3. Part 3 - IBM 1402 Card Read-Punch |
| 4. Part 4 - IBM 729 II Magnetic Tape Unit |
| 5. Part 5 - The Sun's Gone Dim ANd The Sky's Turned Black |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
48 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
If I had found an old computer dating back to the 1960,s I would have first tried to sell it on "E Bay" and failing that hauled it off to the tip faster than you could say blown valve. Thankfully not everyone is as profligate and regressive as me. One such person is Johann Johannsson who on discovering his fathers old IBM 1401,the worlds first mass produced business computer and one for which his father used to be a technician , saw the possibilities to create a stunning piece of art and well....promptly did. In case the word art has got you running off like Jack Straw spotting a veil hold your horses. For while this album is undoubtedly a great work of art, it is also some of the most stunning and evocative music you will ever hear.
Johannsson has taken samples of the IBM,s training tapes and utilised them as the thematic hub of the five pieces of music that make up "Users Manual". The rather prosaic voice detailing the machines workings is allied to some breath taking string arrangements that recall no less than Nyman or even Morricone and subtle sprinklings of electronic chimes, blips and bleeps or simple progressive motifs. Johannssons father should share some of the credit for this music too as it was he who first discovered a method of programming music from the machine.
This is music that has been approached with the definitive belief that music derived from a machine can resonate with soul and emotion .It also glows with positivity that humans can create something from nothing. Something that radiates life, energy and feeling and through an unerring force of atavistic emotion animates the inanimate.
Anyway this review is becoming way too pretentious but this is art I am talking about. But while the concept smacks of worthy indulgence the results are some of the most astonishing music released this year. It imprints a postcard from the sixties and then drags the time line forward 40 years to see what can be done with it. We are talking in a sense about going back to the future. What it looks like I don't know but it sounds amazing.
Johannsson has taken samples of the IBM,s training tapes and utilised them as the thematic hub of the five pieces of music that make up "Users Manual". The rather prosaic voice detailing the machines workings is allied to some breath taking string arrangements that recall no less than Nyman or even Morricone and subtle sprinklings of electronic chimes, blips and bleeps or simple progressive motifs. Johannssons father should share some of the credit for this music too as it was he who first discovered a method of programming music from the machine.
This is music that has been approached with the definitive belief that music derived from a machine can resonate with soul and emotion .It also glows with positivity that humans can create something from nothing. Something that radiates life, energy and feeling and through an unerring force of atavistic emotion animates the inanimate.
Anyway this review is becoming way too pretentious but this is art I am talking about. But while the concept smacks of worthy indulgence the results are some of the most astonishing music released this year. It imprints a postcard from the sixties and then drags the time line forward 40 years to see what can be done with it. We are talking in a sense about going back to the future. What it looks like I don't know but it sounds amazing.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
An album about the first computer installed in Iceland probably wouldn't immediately jump out at you as something of beauty, but this is an absolute treat. Jóhann Jóhannsson is a contemporary of Sigur Rós and, whilst this shares some of the ambient electronic feel of Iceland's finest, the music that Jóhannsson makes is much more classical. Calm, relaxing and very beautiful.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
An album of post classical electronic tinged music based around the impact of early computing in Icleand. One of the warmest and most life affirming pieces of epic music released for ages. A soundtrack to an era of the white heat of technology and a soundtrack to the massiveness of the northern sky. Epic in every way.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
IBM 1401 a Users Manual
A friend recommended this. I would never have found it in a million years. This would have been a shame. It is awesome. Read the story behind it via Google. Really cool. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Musto
Ibm 1401 - a Users Manual
How anyone could fail to fall in love with this album I really don't know, perhaps it may much like Joanna Newsom's Y's end up an album that its so different and so perfect that... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2006 by ben sharpe
Not as good as Englaborn
But, then again, what is?
I've listened to this album twice now, seeing as I only got it a couple of hours ago. Read more
I've listened to this album twice now, seeing as I only got it a couple of hours ago. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2006 by Alan
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