Bleep

4AD herald the cries of one thousand and one modern classic heads by cutting to vinyl Jóhann Jóhannsson's 2006, overtly sci-fi concept album about an Icelandic computer - IBM 1401 A User's Manual.

With much of Jóhann Jóhannsson's material, we'd usually say its best suited to CD or digital formats. Yet with the incredibly vivid future-past feeling translated within the IBM 1401 A User's Manual (and the fact blown up, the sleeve looks stunning) the retroactive current feels completely at home pressed to vinyl. It's a curious album, to say the least. Flitting between passages of Jóhannsson's richly cinematic yet calmingly tranquil string sections, while the meditative state of mind it demands is punctuated with a rather posh sounding cyberpunk narrative about how to operate an old computer.

Technology hitting its peak!