This site is under construction, September 2025
– composer/musician in film, art and experimental music
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I compose music for fiction, documentary, experimental and artfilm, often working closely with directors and sound designers from an early stage.
My approach combines improvisation, field recording and layered composition – allowing sound and music to grow together with the film’s narrative world.
Projects
Makten och Barnet, 2025, 36 min.
Artfilm by Anna Odell
Music: Johan Arrias
– Created in very close collaboration with the artist. Minimal sounds from piano, loose playing on an electric guitar, synth and violoncello.
Exhibited at Kalmar Konstmuseum 14/6 – 16/11 – 2025
Bridgespelerskotrna / The Bridge Players, 2025, 182 min.
Feature film, documentary by Bengt bok and Alberto Herskovits
Production: Alto Film. Distribution: Lucky Dogs. Music: Johan Arrias
– Woodwind and strings. Sensitive and sparse. Connections between visual elements in the film and notes from a bowed vibraphone, celeste and crotales.
World premiere: Gothenburg Film Festival 2025.
Theatrical premiere, August 29, 2025
Surface / Sound, 2025, 5 min. NO/SE
Short film, experimental, poetic
Team: Tora Turøy – photo, director, Johan Arrias – music on saxophone and voice and Erasmnus Talbot electronic instruments.
– A film-scetch in a team of three working without hierarchy, with listening, 'not knowing' and improvisation as methods. Extended techniques on an alto saxophone and a humming voice is played for the actors in headphones for them to react upon – without the director hearing or having heard the music before. A cinematic landscape of music creates space for a the physical and sensing elements.
Premiere: Nordic / Docs 2025, Fredrikstad, Norway
West Sided Story, 2024, 7 min
Dance film, political
Created by Robin Dingemans & Majula Drammeh
Music and sound: Johan Arrias
Premiere: Screendance Festival, 2024
[Her]barium, 2024, 10 min.
Short film, slow/ambient
Director: Sara Key
Music: Johan Arrias
– The score combines inspiration from italian opera, Anton Webern, and improv music.
Premiere at BAFF, New York, 2025
Jorge Iwasaki Spiritua, 2025, 17 min.
Short film, dark, sci-fi
Team: Trixie Edlund Falkenbord – director, production design, Edwin Dickon – sound script and design, Pontus Norberg – photo, Johan Arrias – music.
Musicians: Anna Lindal, Eva Lindal
– Two violins, alternating between barock and modern violin, recorded in an elaborative session directly to moving images and edited in close collaboration with director and sound designer. One of my favorite projects
Premier: not yet
Syster min / Sister of Mine, 2025, 12 min.
Short film, drama, 12' 24''
Director: André Vaara
Photo: Patric Careland
Music: Johan Arrias
The music explores a blurred line between sound design and music in a very subtle way. The music consists of field recordings, recorded sounds from site, synthesizer and string instruments. Though one might detect only a couple of brief moments of music, the original score is over 8 minutes.
Premier: not yet
Transit, 2025, 12 min.
Short film, existential comedy by Adam Hermansson and Carolina Alvear - Bello
Director: Ottilia Wahl
Music: Johan Arrias
– A transit hall between life and death – queer sounds and gestures from an unconventionally manipulated organ, recorded at KMH, Stockholm.
Premiere: not yet
Wallpaper, 2025, 8 min.
Short film, horror
Team: Issraa Elkogali Häggström – director/script, John M Wahl – producer, Carolina Alvear - Bello – production design, Patric Careland – photo, Adam Arbinge – editing, Johan Arrias – music and parts of the sound design
– An early music draft – sounds from prepared piano, percussion and strings – guided the creation of the project as a whole, and created in combination with text/sound work a central scene. The a 'cut-up'-esthetic of the scene was made up a concept for the film and was developed to create a scary atmosphere for the entire film.
Premiere: not yet
Lame Uncertain Curves, 2023, 10 min.
Art video by Anna Linderstam. Sound and music: Johan Arrias. Exhibited at Landskrona Foto, 2023.
– The music/sound explores breath in unconventional technique on saxophone creating a both soothing and uncanny atmosphere. Listen
Bubbla / Bubble, 2020, 3 min
Audio-visual, artfilm
Visuals: Helene Berg
Music: Johan Arrias
One of the outcomes of a residency at Khimira, Stockholm in 2020. Helene and Johan explored motion, movement and texture in structured improvisations combining prepared saxophone, video and live visual.