A Partir to Live | Jozef van Wissem

Listening to a movie soundtrack on its own isn't meant to be an active experience—rather, at their best, soundtracks are immersive, aural pathways into another place and time. Fêted minimalist composer Jozef van Wissem understands this principle, and makes full of use of it on his collaborative effort with director Domingo Garcia-Huidobro of Föllakzoid. The original sound recording for Garcia-Huidobro's critically acclaimed 2012 avantgarde paranormal odyssey, Partir to Live, was composed solely by van Wissem, and screenings of the film across the world have been accompanied by a live performance of the score.To get into Jozef Van Wissem’s world is to surrender to the inevitability—and timelessness—of a strange music created at its own pace, in a manner wholly of its creator’s making. He sets the listener into a private world, looking out through a glass darkly, such is the intense quality of the music. Brevity, simplicity, directness is the key. (Quietus)Van Wissem is ‘both an avant-garde composer and a baroque lutenist, and thus no stranger to dichotomy,’ (New York Times). He has been ‘pushing the lute’s agenda out of the academy and into more accessible circles’ (Pitchfork). ‘He's performed over 800 solo lute concerts in churches and at concert venues around the world, including prestigious rock festivals like ATP and Primavera Sound, playing his all black, one-of-a-kind baroque lute custom built for him. In 2013 van Wissem won the Cannes Soundtrack Award for best score at the Cannes Film Festival for “Only Lovers Left Alive”. Van Wissem has played live and recorded with Jim Jarmusch, Tilda Swinton and Zola Jesus. On his latest record entitled When “Shall This Bright Day Begin” he also sings. The baroque sharp-tuned dances he weaves under his vocal line possess an occult delicate beauty’.(Mojo)