Fordlandia was a failed venture of automobile magnate Henry Ford, a vast spread of land in the Brazilian Amazon that he purchased in the 1920s, his aim being the harvesting of rubber for tires. A combination of technical misjudgement and poor treatment of his workers led to its eventual sale at a loss in 1945. Having laid out such an intriguing scenario, it must be said that the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's new concept album doesn't particularly evoke images of this unusual place and time. If it's steamy, then it's due to hot springs spurting in cold Northern atmospheres, rather than the humid sweating of South American rubber trees. Essentially, this lack of audio imagery isn't so important, as Fordlandia possesses its own distinct charms as a suite-like sequence of pieces.

Jóhannsson is again recording in Prague, mostly with a 60-piece orchestra. The strings are hardly audible at the beginning of the disc's 14 minute title opener, making their slow and stately progress towards an eventually fully-risen volume that might startle the listener. It makes a choral swell, but with strings rather than voices. Then, it recedes into the distance. There's a character that's reminiscent of Arvo Part's gently sawing developments, or more precisely, the steady processes of The Sinking Of The Titanic, when composer Gavin Bryars was in his most contemplative state.

1. Fordlandia
2. Melodia (i)
3. The Rocket Builder
4. Melodia (ii)
5. Fordlandia-Aerial View
6. Melodia (iii)
7. Chimaerica
8. Melodia (iv)
9. The Great God Pan Is Dead
10. Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device Based On Heim's Quantum Theory)
11. How We Left Fordlandia

(ODE)

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