Who Put the “Who” in the “iamamiwhoami”?
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010UPDATE: Wednesday, 4/21, 12:00 It would seem that I have misunderestimated the affinity of Swedish synthophiles with stereotypically Scandinavian stereoptics for the Philips Philicordia GM753. It turns out that Andreas Dahlback, a frequent collaborator of Jonna Lee, is also an owner of the keyboard in question. I guess I’m a Philicordia Philistine.
This is a photo of him from his MySpace page:
You can see an identical blemish on his forehead to the one on the young man in an altered, transcendent state in the “b” video. And, of course, the organ:
Thanks to Hils, for directing me toward Dahlback in the comments section.
Regardless that the “who is” mystery is solved, I love the mythology they’ve created: A mysterious and beautiful creature (conceived by aliens? science? nature? magic) is born out of an ancient tree all covered in Earth-vernix, eventually found, bathed, covered in protective plastic, and later just an Elizabethan collar. When she sings, humans around her go into a trance-like euphoria, and plants become sentient.
And I’m still looking forward to the Junip EP.
This is the latest video, “o,” released a couple weeks back:
I’ll be publishing a new show soon!
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My original post:
Another member of the enigmatic project discovered?
I am a relative latecomer to the iamamiwhoami party, only having discovered the electronic music/viral video phenomenon earlier this month. If you’re just getting to the party now, I’ll catch you up.
In late 2009, this video appeared on YouTube, posted by an anonymous user by the name of iamamiwhoami.
In the five months since, seven similar videos have been posted, each time revealing slightly more of the mysterious young woman’s features, who is seemingly born of a tree or out of the Earth. The last two, titled simply “b” and “o” (rather than long number sequences separated by periods) are full-length songs, and show enough of the woman’s face, uncovered by tar-like makeup and relatively undistorted otherwise, for some to recognize her as Swedish singer/songwriter Jonna Lee.
The above video demonstrates pretty clearly that Jonna Lee is the singer for iamamiwhoami, but there are three men also shown in the seventh video, “b,” presumably the other musicians comprising the project. I believe I have determined the identity of one of them: Tobias Winterkorn.
Winterkorn is keyboardist for the Swedish band Junip, which is fronted by Jose Gonzales. The band are currently working on a follow-up to their 2005 debut EP, and have released a single on their website called Rope & Summit (email required). On the website’s splash page, we see one of Winterkorn’s vintage keyboards, a Philips Philicordia GM753--the same exact model as shown in “b.”
So, maybe it’s just coincidence. After all, Philips did mass-produce those Philicordias. And Sweden is a country, not a neighborhood, so it doesn’t prove anything, right? But, although there’s not much to go on in terms of facial features, we are shown each of the three men’s eyes.
Here’s one of them from “b”:
And here’s a closeup, taken four years ago by Flickr user ca6:
Same country? Check. Same keyboard? Check. Same eyes? Check.
Now, who are the other two?
Watch iamamiwhoami’s “b”
Listen to Junip’s “Rope & Summit” (email required for download)
Watch Jonna Lee’s “My High”
