Jozef van Wissem

A native of the Netherlands, Jozef Van Wissem functions as both lutenist and composer who subjects 15th-century compositions for his instrument to processes of adaptation and improvisation. Appearances at churches, galleries, and rock festivals allowed him to open Baroque repertoire to contemporary rock listeners. Dozens of solo albums have appeared under his name, among them the 2002 release Retrograde Renaissance Lute: A Classical Deconstruction, the 2005 album Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, and 2007’s Stations of the Cross, which incorporated field recordings. Since the 2012 recording The Mystery of Heaven, Van Wissem has maintained an ongoing partnership with filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch that also produced the lutenist’s award-winning score for Only Lovers Left Alive in 2013. Duo projects from the 2010s encompass 2019’s An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil and 2023’s American Landscapes. In 2024 Van Wissem issued the solo album The Night Dwells in the Day.

Guitar served as Van Wissem’s initial instrument. Throughout his teenage years he pursued classical studies even as he embraced the new rock & roll currents flowing from punk. During the ’80s he performed as guitarist and frontman of the post-punk/new wave group Desert Corbusier while also operating a bar. Disillusioned with the rock & roll milieu, he gravitated toward quieter, more concentrated musical forms. Recalling earlier transcriptions of lute music for guitar, he resolved to master the lute itself. After selling the bar he relocated to New York and undertook formal study with Patrick O’Brien, cultivating a personal approach in which he mirrors the historical canon of the instrument through tablature—beginning at the bottom left and concluding at the top right—while inserting improvisation, additional sections, and interludes.

Van Wissem’s first album, Retrograde Renaissance Lute: A Classical Deconstruction, was issued by Persephone in 2000. The recording surprised listeners across Europe and the United States and elicited an unusually large volume of critical coverage. Narcissus Drowning followed in 2002. Diplopia, his initial collaboration with Lucas and the first of six albums on Willem Breuker’s BVHaast label, appeared in 2003; additional titles that year included Simulacrum: Mirror Images for Solo Lute and Electronics. Further releases on the label comprised The Universe of Absence with Lucas and, in 2004, Proletarian Drift with Akiyama, the solo Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear in 2005, and A Rose by Any Other Name: Anonymous Lute Solos of the Golden Age, issued jointly by Incunabulum and BVHaast in 2006. Another Akiyama collaboration, Hymn for a Fallen Angel, came out on Van Wissem’s own label in 2007, alongside the solo Stations of the Cross. In 2008 the lutenist and Blackshaw recorded two albums under the name Brethren of the Free Spirit—The Wolf Shall Also Dwell with the Lamb on Important and All Things Are from Him, Through Him and In Him on audioMER—while also releasing the solo album A Priori on Incunabulum.

Critical attention expanded internationally; independent outlets continued to review his work, and live performances abroad drew notices in television, radio, and print. Three further albums appeared on Important between 2009 and 2011: It Is All That Is Made, Ex Patris, and The Joy That Never Ends. Collaborative recording began in earnest in 2011 with Suite the Hen’s Teeth alongside Smegma and Downland with United Bible Studies. Work with Jarmusch commenced in earnest that same year, yielding 2012’s Apokatastasis, soon followed by Concerning the Entrance into Eternity and The Mystery of Heaven, each on a separate label. Movement in Marble/Stone with electro-acoustic composer Gregg Kowalsky also surfaced that year.

Nihil Obstat, a solo album on Important, appeared in 2013 together with the title track from the score to Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, created in tandem with the director’s band SQÜRL. The complete soundtrack, featuring additional contributions from Yasmine Hamdan, Zola Jesus, and Madeline Follin of Cults, received release in 2014 after the score earned the Cannes Award. Later that December Van Wissem issued the solo album It Is Time for You to Return on Crammed Discs. The record included participation from Domingo Garcia-Huidobro of Föllakzoid, who had directed the 2012 film Partir to Live; Van Wissem likewise contributed to its score, issued by Sacred Bones in 2015. When Shall This Bright Day Begin, which featured guest vocals by Zola Jesus, emerged on Consouling Sounds in 2016, followed by the same label’s 2017 release Nobody Living Can Ever Make Me Turn Back.

Incunabulum was revived for 2017’s New Lute Music for Film. We Adore You, You Have No Name, Van Wissem’s third Consouling Sounds album, arrived in 2018. In 2019 he rejoined Jarmusch for the Sacred Bones full-length An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil. The same year the Cinémathèque Française commissioned him to compose the soundtrack for the restored original print of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film Nosferatu in honor of its centenary. While preparing the score he encountered a Dutch double 7" LP of field recordings capturing the calls of extinct birds on the streets of Rotterdam; these sounds were processed electronically and integrated into the film music. The resulting album, Nosferatu (The Call of the Deathbird), appeared on Incunabulum in 2022. American Landscapes, another collaboration with Jarmusch, followed in 2023, the year Van Wissem also supplied an award-winning original score for Pierre Creton’s film A Prince. In January 2024 he released the solo single “With Our Hands Our Hearts to Raise,” followed two weeks later by the album The Night Dwells in the Day.