Born in Vienna, Johnson studied multimedia art with a focus on acoustic engineering and graphics at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg from 2005 to 2009.
[10][11] He is among the self-proclaimed generation of "bedroom producers"[12] who participated in the emergence of an international beat community based the accessibility of digital production technology and early Internet fora, such as MySpace, in the first decade of the 2000s.
[19] In 2011, Jason Swincoe invited him to continue his collaboration with Cinematic Orchestra by asking him to compose film music (with Tom Chant) for two avant-garde shorts by Peter Tscherkassky, "Outer Space" and "Dream Work," for the Cinematic Orchestra's "In Motion" series in which musicians are asked to compose original scores for classic short films, which also gave him an additional opportunity to perform in a formal concert settings with string accompaniment at the Barbican Centre in London and Tokyo.
[22][23] As of 2011, his touring and production activity dropped off with the exception of a few remixes, and he spend over two years working on a new sound and material for his second album, Joined Ends, which Ninja Tune released in October 2014.
In 2020, his song "You're Untouchable" was featured on Grand Theft Auto Online radio station FlyLo FM, through The Cayo Perico Heist update.
"[33] "Unconventional chord changes, expressive dynamics and quirky layers of counterpoint melodies,..." also have been identified as "...parts of his unmistakable musical voice,..." along with his ability to "...dot effortlessly through different genres and styles: from sublime electronica to hyperactive garage to avant-garde dancehall.
[38][39] The release of Joined Ends in 2014 marked a departure from his established musical voice and reliance on the Microkorg as a platform for digital production and performance.
"[45] To perform this new material and sound, he also developed a new trio stage show with his long-standing Viennese friends and band-mates from JSBL: Paul Movahedi ("The Clonious") on bass and Clemens Bacher ("Cid Rim") on percussion.
[46][47][48] After Joined Ends was released, Johnson toured extensively and then dropped out of sight again for over two years to work on The Nature of Imitation, which appeared on his third label, Brainfeeder, as his third LP in 2018.
For Johnson, The Nature of Imitation also represented an "aesthetic break" from Joined Ends and a process of "reinvention" that entailed returning "to my old approaches but from a completely different perspective"[49] and resulted in a "brand new sound.
[53] He consequently shifted his technique of "self-sampling" from reworking short segements and tightly strung loops to relying on longer first-takes that he recorded live and then wove unedited into the fabric of each song.
"[55] What We Do For Others reflected the established features of Johnson's trademark musical voice, but it but it put them togehter in a looser, more relaxed, and more melodic manner.
It also reflected the approach he used in his 2022 album What We Do For Others insofar as it was based on using raw material and his insight that “there’s something magical that happens in these first takes we often call drafts.”[56] Johnson was free to experiment with instruments from extensive SMEM collection of over 5,000 vintage devices, and he relied on his intuitive understanding of how synthesizers work to record, mix, and edit the nine tracks on this EP on-site in the SMEM playroom in the course of his two-week stay.
“Exploring the distinctiveness of each instrument and celebrating their differences [was] at the heart of this project,” which resulted in a record he described as “a playful excursion.”[59] In light of the fact that Johnson has established himself in a distinct niche in the international electronic music scene, he is widely acknowledged by Austrian music critics as the leading Austrian electronic musician and composer of his generation.
[62] Its world premiere—originally scheduled for April 2020 at the Konzerthaus in Vienna—was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and belatedly took place under the auspices of the Transart Festival in Bolazano, Italy, on 9 September 2020, with a repeat performance at the Musikprotokoll Graz on 11 October 2020.
This concert included Johnson improvising two compositions live on a Roland SH-101 that entailed sequentially layering musical voices with a looper.
When We Meet, an investigation of musical textures without solo voices, premiered in a performance by a fifteen-piece Studio Dan ensemble on 26 September 2024 at MuTh in Vienna.