Drone mass

"This work by composer Jóhann Jóhannsson is built on drones, broadly defined. It is not exactly a mass, although it does use sacred texts, treated in an incantatory way. The texts are from the so-called Nag Hammadi Library, early Christian documents in the Coptic language discovered in the fourth century C.E. ... An hour of drone music might sound like a lot, but the movements are varied, both among themselves and within themselves ... That kind of interaction among the electronics, the string quartet of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, and the singers is key to the structure of the work, which, fascinatingly, allows for some freedom in its realization ... The voices are fixed but may have, to quote the notes by John Schaefer, the quality of "Renaissance purity, Bulgarian belting, or Stockhausen overtones." All this is to say that the textures of this music are unique and are likely to be experienced as novel even by those who've heard a good deal of what is known as holy minimalism, which traverses some of the same terrain".

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"Det virker, som om afdøde Jóhann Jóhannsson med "Drone Mass", et ordløst oratorium, gerne har villet trænge ind til noget urmenneskeligt ... Lykkes det? Ikke rigtigt. De ordløst messende motiver, som Theatre of Voices indlevende repeterer, løfter os ganske vist ud af tiden med deres ritualistiske karakter ... Men det lykkes aldrig Jóhannsson at formulere et musikalsk projekt ... For mig at se viser udgivelsen, at Jóhannsson var bedst i sit filmiske univers, hvor han skulle farve eller fordreje billederne på skærmen, ikke tegne dem selv".