Jozef van Wissem

• Name — Jozef van Wissem • Landscape — yes • Born — 22 November 1962 • Birthplace — Maastricht, Netherlands • Genre — Classical, minimal • Occupation — Musician • Instrument — Lute • Years Active — 2000–present • Label — The Spring Press Amish Records Sacred Bones Records Important Records Incunabulum Records BVHaast Records Persephone Records • Website — jozefvanwissem.com

Jozef van Wissem was born in Maastricht. An incessantly touring musician, Van Wissem studied lute in New York with Patrick O'Brien in 1990s. Jozef van Wissem's solo albums, It Is All That Is Made (2009) and Ex Patris (2010), were released on Important Records. He released The Joy That Never Ends, an album with Jim Jarmusch on the label in 2011. He wrote a score for the video game The Sims Medieval. Van Wissem has earned much critical acclaim for his work, the ‘liberation of the lute’ as he calls it. According to Steve Dollar for the Washington Post, For him the lute is utterly contemporary. “I want to update it and also make it sexy again. It’s not interesting to a lot of people because it comes with all this baggage, this set of rules that these academics gave the instrument, that keeps it in a museum.” To that end, Van Wissem often performs in rock venues and could easily pass for a Nordic metal overlord, with thigh-high black leather boots and long, dirty-blond hair. Van Wissem can captivate a room on his own, as unafraid of spare beauty as he is of experimental gambits. When he plays the melody’s delicate glimmer freezes the moment, begging the listener to come closer as he steps away from the microphone. Van Wissem holds the instrument in front of his chest as the natural sound resonates inside the lute’s boat-like cavity. He’s not only liberating the lute, as he suggests later, but also asking his audience to liberate themselves from accustomed approaches to music. • Illustration — Recent image of the artist According to The New York Times "Van Wissem is both an avant-garde composer and a baroque lutenist, and thus no stranger to dichotomy". According to Richard Foster in The Quietus, "Van Wissem is possibly the best known lute player in the Western world." In his review of the 2016 album When Shall This Bright Day Begin, Foster said that "To get into 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." Concerning the Entrance into Eternity, his first collaborative album with Jim Jarmusch, was released on Important Records in early 2012. The Mystery of Heaven, his second collaborative album with Jarmusch, was released on Sacred Bones Records later that year. The More She Burns the More Beautifully She Glows, a track off the album, featured a guest appearance from Tilda Swinton. Van Wissem scored Jarmusch's 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive. When Shall This Bright Day Begin, featuring guest vocals by Zola Jesus, was released by Consouling Sounds in 2016. The same label released Nobody Living Can Ever Make Me Turn Back in 2017. Van Wissem reactivated Incunabulum for his 2017 release New Lute Music for Film. His third Consouling Sounds release, We Adore You, You Have No Name, followed in 2018. In 2019, Van Wissem and Jarmusch returned to Sacred Bones with the album An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil. In 2022 his new solo lute and electronics record “ Behold! I Make All Things New " was announced. Louderthanwar announced his upcoming tour and wrote, Jozef van Wissem is a Dutch lute player who vamps the instrument into the now. His spellbinding atmospheric music has a haunting resonance. "Behold! I Make All Things New “ is all instrumental and consists of sparse works for lute and electronics. There are no vocals this time. It is more a return to the minimal neo-classical style of his early work. It was written and recorded in lockdown in Warsaw and Rotterdam between 2019 and 2021.”. In 2022 four of his compositions were featured in the Irma Vep Series on HBO. His piece " Temple Dance Of The Soul" was featured in the trailer and under the Alica Vikander mirror scene in the series. ” In 2023 Van Wissem scored the Cannes Award winning film Un Prince. He released the soundtrack on his own Incunabulum label in 2024. The New York Times wrote " A subtly medieval score — distinguished by the thrum of a lute and composed by Jozef van Wissem — draws out a surreal dimension. Eventually, the film shifts into explicitly sexual and mythological terrain with a B.D.S.M. edge, and the score keeps pace, taking on a folk metal vibe." According to Chain DLK in 2026: His work for cinema, from "Nosferatu" to "Irma Vep", has consistently demonstrated his ability to treat music as architecture rather than accompaniment, allowing silence, resonance and repetition to shape emotional space with remarkable precision. That cinematic sensibility permeates this latest release, although its landscapes feel intensely inward. Nothing here hurries toward resolution. Time stretches, folds back upon itself and occasionally seems to stop altogether.

• Retrograde: A Classical Deconstruction (2000, Persephone) • Narcissus Drowning (2002, Persephone) • Simulacrum (2003, BVHaast) • Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear (2005, BVHaast) • A Rose by Any Other Name: Anonymous Lute Solos of the Golden Age (2006, Incunabulum) • Stations of the Cross (2007, Incunabulum) • A Priori (2008, Incunabulum) • It Is All That Is Made (2009, Important Records) • Ex Patris (2010, Important Records) • The Joy That Never Ends (2011, Important Records) • Arcana Coelestia (2012, The Spring Press) • Nihil Obstat (2013, Important Records) • It Is Time For You To Return (2014, Crammed Discs) • Partir to Live (2015, Sacred Bones) • When Shall This Bright Day Begin (2016, Consouling Sounds) • New Lute Music For Film (2017, Incunabulum) • Nobody Living Can Ever Make Me Turn Back (2017, Consouling Sounds) • We Adore You, You Have No Name (2018, Consouling Sounds) • Ex Mortis (2020, Consouling Sounds) • Behold, I Make All Things New (2022, Incunabulum) • Nosferatu, The Call Of The Deathbird (2022, Incunabulum) • The Night Dwells in the Day (2024, Incunabulum) • Un Prince, Original Soundtrack (2024, Incunabulum) • 'This Is My Blood (2026, Incunabulum)

• The day is coming - live in Rouen 2015 Phonographic Cylinder (2017, Disordered) - private press

• Diplopia (2003, BVHaast) with Gary Lucas • Proletarian Drift (2004, BVHaast) with Tetuzi Akiyama • The Universe of Absence (2004, BVHaast) with Gary Lucas • Das Platinzeitalter (2007, Incunabulum) with Maurizio Bianchi • Hymn for a Fallen Angel (2007, Incunabulum) with Tetuzi Akiyama • All Things Are from Him, Through Him and in Him (2008, Audiomer) as Brethren of the Free Spirit • The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb (2008, Important Records) as Brethren of the Free Spirit • Suite the Hen's Teeth (2010, Incunabulum) with Smegma • Downland (2010, Incunabulum) with United Bible Studies • A Prayer for Light (2010, Incunabulum) with Heresy of the Free Spirit • Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012, Important Records) with Jim Jarmusch • The Mystery of Heaven (2012, Sacred Bones Records) with Jim Jarmusch and Tilda Swinton • Apokatastasis (2012, Incunabulum) featuring Jim Jarmusch • Only Lovers Left Alive (2014, Atp Recordings) with Zola Jesus and Sqürl • An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil (2019, Sacred Bones Records) with Jim Jarmusch • American Landscapes (2023, Incunabulum Records) with Jim Jarmusch • The Day The Angels Cried (2025, Incunabulum Records) with Jim Jarmusch

• "The Mirror of Eternal Light" on The Garden of Forking Paths (2007, Important Records) • "This Is How We Sing" on New Music for Old Instruments (2012, Incunabulum) with Jon Mueller and Robbie Lee • "Prayer Of Quiet" on New Music For Old Instruments (2012, Incunabulum) with Keiji Haino • "The Mystery Of Heaven" on Todo Muere Volume 3 (2013, Sacred Bones Records) with Jim Jarmusch • "The Call Of The First Æthyr" on "Black Magic " (2021, Cleopatra Records) with Aleister Crowley