Jóhann Jóhannsson has released well over 20 albums in his career. And who really knows how many sound documents still lie in the drawer that could see the light of day posthumously. Once a month, Kristoffer Cornils and Thaddeus Herrmann review the composer's work - chronologically, album by album. In June, they both tackle "Fordlandia," released in 2008.
Thaddi: I haven't bought any new clothes for 14 months. I also urgently need new glasses, because I perceive reality, well, quite "interestingly" through the ever faster disintegrating plastic lenses of my current ones, which is not very helpful. I feel pretty comfortable in the role of the disoriented history professor, with worn elbows and no real awareness of my appearance. And therefore, with "Fordlandia," let me provide an overview of the historical framework of the album. I ask myself: How can a composer, whom I do not accuse of any, absolutely no racist tendencies, work on a failed utopia of a confirmed anti-Semite like Henry Ford? We'll get to the music in a minute, of course. I just can't get it together in my head. The concept, yeah, sure, it's cool. But from my "academic" point of view I think: come on, Jóhann, leave it. Don't make the Laibach mistake. I'm more than happy to forget this aspect - or approach it from a more abstract angle. Because the music is just wonderful. How do you feel about all that?
Kristoffer: First of all, I find it interesting that you open our conversation like this, after we had clashed in the last issue of this series. It showed our different approaches. You tend to approach the themes through the music and I sometimes approach Jóhannsson's music in the opposite way. And now this question.
Thaddi: Professors are unpredictable because they are so scatterbrained!
Kristoffer: Don't worry, I'm being stubborn again: I wouldn't start that debate in the first place, because the person Henry Ford plays a subordinate role for this album and our involvement with it - at least the private citizen. Above all it is a moral question and I think that morality will play a big role in the further course of the conversation, but we should first talk about other things. Technology, above all. There is little to be said against it at the moment: we are sitting in the same room together for the first time in 18 months, and this has been made possible by an incredible scientific effort whose success we owe solely to technological progress. We are inoculated and tested, we feel safe. There is an emancipatory potential in that. And something similar could be said about the cars Henry Ford produced back then. They promised an affordable freedom of movement. Then as now, however, it is worth looking at Brazil: just as Fordlândia ended in an ecological and social catastrophe, the people there are just as unlikely to enjoy the technologically supported promises of freedom today. Half a million people have died directly from COVID-19; just one friend alone from Brasilia told me of a few indirect victims who could no longer withstand the despair brought on by a double crisis. Could this be remedied? Maybe. At least it would be possible to alleviate the effects. But the priority of the European Union and other power conglomerates is to ensure that the people can once again spend their savings in the shopping malls of their countries and that huge pharmaceutical companies emerge from the affair with a fat bank account. Technology can never be thought of without economics, in a purely economic sense as well as in a (power) political sense: cui bono? This, however, brings me back to your question, which seemed to lead away from this album: Do you think that Jóhannsson's musical engagement with the Fordlândia project and thus also with the person who conceived it is an affirmative one? Because I find that more exciting than the discussion about the music itself, since we are probably pretty much in agreement on that.