It is certainly remarkable that, eight years after the death of Jóhann Jóhannsson, previously unreleased material by the Icelandic composer is still being released. Deutsche Grammophon’s handling of his musical legacy has often seemed more driven by a desire to maximise profits than by artistic necessity. But Adam Wiltzie, as both a long-standing friend and fellow musician of Jóhannsson on the one hand, and one half of the drone duo Stars Of The Lid on the other, is above suspicion. Especially as this is not a case of remixes. The album is based on recordings created jointly – during the sessions for Jóhannsson’s soundtracks for *The Theory of Everything* and *Arrival*. In a multi-stage process, new compositions emerged from the tape loops of that time. First with Steve Albini (two dead men on one album – heaven!) and then the Budapest Art Orchestra.
What Wiltzie now presents as Friendship Survival Guide is actually rather good. It turns out that the musical worlds of the two composers not only share great parallels, but also harmonise wonderfully with one another. The elegiac, the vast, the dark, the understanding of sound: all of this fits together as if by itself – without kitsch, but with plenty of depth. An album to swoon over, yet one that also calls for a fight. Would Jóhannsson sound like this today? Friendship Survival Guide offers solace for the fact that we’ll never know.
