A flop-eared rodent frolics in a lush field. In from the horizon sweeps a black cloud, kicked up by an army of similar-looking rodents. That's the basic set-up of Varmints, a 24-minute film by Studio AKA animator Marc Craste, based on a book written by Helen Ward and illustrated by Craste. Jóhann Jóhannsson draws the title of his latest album from the book, and this is the music he composed for the film's soundtrack. There's quite a bit of extra material-- the album is a full 15 minutes longer than the film-- but there's really no padding. And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees works as a suite and doesn't require knowledge of the film or even the film's existence to work as a recording, though I recommend seeing the movie if you get the chance, as it's a very well-done eco-parable.
As a recording, the album displays a few sides of Jóhannsson we haven't heard before. Among his albums to date, it's one of the most musically active, and befitting its origin, also the most soundtrack-y, which means something for a guy working in a genre frequently referred to as cinematic. We first got to know the Icelandic composer through two brilliant minimal electro-orchestral albums, Englabörn and Virðulegu forsetar, both of which displayed a knack for unifying the whole work by exploring and re-exploring the same themes in different contexts. And in the Endless Pause does the same, returning to a series of motifs and using the orchestration to imply different meanings each time. Though it does incorporate some of Jóhannsson's trademark electronic treatments, this is largely an orchestral and choral work, given a vividly atmospheric, almost spectral performance by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.
One of the biggest surprises of the score is how openly dramatic it is given the composer's past work. The solo cello that moans up out of the droning morass of "Escape" before being swallowed by a hideous electro-acoustic groan is among the most nakedly emotional sounds I've heard in his music. The richness of the arrangements elsewhere gives them dramatic heft-- "Rainwater" is so thick with strings it feels as if it could burst (it scores an odd scene in which huge flying jellyfish sprinkle dandelion seeds over the city). It has the glacial beauty of a lot of his past work without the glacial pacing. Which is not to say it's better, as the slow pacing of Virðulegu forsetar was one of its assets, but it is more immediate, whether or not you're watching those civilization-building rodents.
