SAMN JOHNSON
composer/producer/teacher
ACRAEA
Acraea is an electronic pop duo with singer-songwriter Leora Mandel. Leora writes all the lyrics and generates most of the raw musical material, which I then arrange and produce. Our debut EP, featuring performances by composer and saxophonist Shelley Washington, is currently being mixed and will be released in spring 2018. Check out our first single, out on the Noise for Planned Parenthood compilation on Spotify.
Bach Party
Bach Party is my extravagant, interdisciplinary, comedy movie-making collective with University of Michigan music school pals Nathan Monday and Daniel Goldblum. We write, produce, shoot, act, and edit absurdist short films and music videos, which often satirize musical and historical topics. Check out our seminal historico-comedo-parable drama, Gradus ad Parnassum: Curse of the Ninth (I'm the purple man).
Be sure to visit our site for more videos and updates.
Selva
Selva is a four-piece indie rock band based in Brooklyn. I hold down the bass, and am not as involved compositionally as my other projects. Most of the songwriting work is carried by guitarists Mackenzie Starr and Anders Kapur, with final arrangements jammed out with me and our drummer, Nidhish Sasi. We released our debut EP in 2017, which you can grab on bandcamp, or stream on spotify.
Leda and the Goat
Leda and the Goat is a 2015 animated short film by K. Rose Miller. I composed this soundtrack for 3 cellos, electric guitar, and electronics, recorded by myself and Zac Lavender.
40 Days of Teeth
This collaboration with dancer/choreographer Julia Alix Smith-Eppsteiner based on Kafka's short story "A Hunger Artist" was staged in an Ann Arbor warehouse in 2012, I joined with Ann Arbor bands Our Brother the Native, and Known Moons to accompany semi-improvised dance inspired by the story, and also read excerpts from my own translation.
Collab Connect
One of the first video projects I worked on, this Tim and Eric inspired instructional rap was created for official use by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance. It explains how to use their new Collab Connect service, and can still be viewed on their student resources page. Editing was shared by myself and Zac Lavender, and I produced the beat and performed the rap, with a guest verse by Bach Party member Nathan Mondry. Also featured is my own organ arrangement and performance of Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame.
Al Sabo
Al Sabo was a (mostly) instrumental post-rock band with my close friends Tim Hessen and Elija Smith. The three of us grew up playing music together, and our 2012 album is the culmination of these formative music-making activities. The band is named for our favorite nature preserve in Portage, Michigan. I played guitar, some keys, heavily processed vocals, and programmed electronics. This was one of my first forays into production, with the recording and mixing work shared by Elija and myself.
