Jóhann Jóhannsson and Adam Wiltzie Announce ‘Friendship Survival Guide’
Adam Wiltzie and Jóhann Jóhannsson’s ‘Friendship Survival Guide’ arrives September 18, 2026, through Deutsche Grammophon.
Deutsche Grammophon will release Friendship Survival Guide, a collaborative album by Adam Wiltzie and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, on September 18, 2026. The album contains orchestral psychedelic drone compositions written and recorded across the pair’s decade-long creative partnership. The lead single “White Gloves & Turtlenecks” is out today and can be listened to here.
Click to load video
The recordings originated in sessions held from 2013 to 2017 for Jóhannsson’s scores to the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. After Jóhannsson’s death in February 2018 and several years away from the material, Wiltzie returned with the approval of his family. Some pieces retain analog tape loops recorded by engineer Francesco Donadello on Jóhannsson’s Revox machines, while others required additional work between 2023 and 2025 with Tim Hecker and Bryan Senti. Steve Albini recorded and amplified many of Wiltzie’s guitar parts at Electrical Audio in Chicago months before his death. “Our friendship is the story here,” Wiltzie said. “Jóhann’s not there anymore, but this artifact we created together is alive.”
Wiltzie and Jóhannsson first met in Prague in 2007, when Jóhannsson was working on Fordlandia and attended a Stars of the Lid concert. Wiltzie helped organize Jóhannsson’s first U.S. tour in 2009, then joined his live band and worked as his sound engineer. For Friendship Survival Guide, Wiltzie assigned titles with personal meanings connected to their history. The opening track, “September Nineteen Sixty Nine,” refers to the month both musicians were born, two days and an ocean apart. He said the titles function as a private language between the collaborators, placing references to their friendship inside the finished record.
A three-chapter short film directed by Jonas Govaerts will also arrive on September 18, starring Wiltzie and Bullhead actor Jeroen Perceval in a fictional nocturnal taxi journey filmed in Gent and Muizen. Pre-orders will open that day for a crystal-clear vinyl edition of Jóhannsson’s Orphée, marking the album’s 10th anniversary ahead of its October 16 release. On October 9, 2026, the Vancouver International Film Festival will present Jóhannsson’s music at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, with an orchestra accompanying clips from Prisoners, Arrival, Sicario and The Theory of Everything.
Listen to Jóhann Jóhannsson and Adam Wiltzie’s Friendship Survival Guide here.
