Yann Tiersen - Minimalism for Folk Hearts

Classical training, a rock soul, an avant-garde streak: Yann Tiersen's music has always thrived on the harmonious meeting of opposite worlds, gradually translating them into a sound in which the tradition of his origins walks hand in hand with the experimentation of his most recent years, embracing the lessons of masters such as Eric Satie, Nino Rota and Philip Glass. And it is precisely by virtue of this blend of enchanted atmospheres — often borrowed from cinema — and sonic outposts (synthetic, linguistic, and so on) that the Breton composer stands out as one of the most important composers of our era.

The Long Rise

De l'endroit où je suis

["Les bras de mer", Le Phare]

Yann Tiersen was born on 23 June 1970 in Brest, a Breton town on the Atlantic coast, to parents of Belgian and Norwegian descent. His destiny as a musician, however, took shape in Rennes, where the very young Yann — just six years old — began attending music schools and later the local conservatory, where he proved himself a child prodigy on piano and violin. Although already set on a path towards a career as an orchestra conductor, at fourteen he discovered rock music, and it was like a Copernican revolution: "I started with post-punk," he said in an interview given to OndaRock, "Stooges and Joy Division taught me, as a kid, that technique isn't what matters." Strings and keys were inevitably joined by samplers, and the young Tiersen became a much sought-after multi-instrumentalist in the many bands blossoming in the dynamic Breton capital. He tried his hand in outfits inspired by David Bowie, Roxy Music or kraut-rock, invaluable lessons for what was to come in the years ahead.

As if following a predestined plan, towards the start of the Nineties Tiersen was asked to compose the music for two separate visual works: the stage adaptation of the 1932 film "Freaks" and the theatrical version of Yukio Mishima's "Le tambourin de soie".

The two scores came together in 1995 on the debut album La Valse des Monstres, released in just a thousand copies by Sine Terra Firma. The first part of the album features the ten tracks from "Freaks", the second those from "Le tambourin de soie", plus a handful of original pieces.

With a minimal touch, Tiersen puts together for the first time — still rather timidly, in truth — a set of pieces that, freed from the song format, start out from classical and traditional music in search of more modern, outward-looking solutions. The album opens with the piano, violin and harpsichord phrasing of "Mouvement introductif". The following "La Valse des Monstres" is a dreamy accordion waltz, while "Frida" and "Ballendai" move over the solitary chimes of a toy piano, and "Quimper 94" takes on strong folkloric tones. The two harpsichords of "Comptine d'été n. 17" have the feel of a medieval interlude (a second version for toy piano will follow later), while "Cléo au Trapeze" reveals Tiersen's love for Nino Rota's compositions. "La Valse des Monstres" returns a second time, this time as a toy-piano exercise, while "Le Banquet" brings a second bit of accordion wizardry: it is here, within the folds of an airy epic quality that seems to come from some indefinite past (or from the waves of the ocean), that the Breton composer's talent pours out in full force.

"Le tambourin de soie" also has its own "Mouvement introductif", a sort of catharsis moving from darkness towards increasingly airy lines. "La rue" is a brief exchange between four violins that also return in "Iwaichi" and "Hanako", this time accompanied by toy piano and music box. The overall mood is darker, and remains so in the more structured (and refined) "La plaisanterie", where harpsichord, violin and accordion add further depth to the material. The closing stretch is marked by the harpsichord and piano touches of the fast, bland "Le compteur" and by the sparse coda of the final "Mouvement introductif".

Thoroughly at ease in the role of composer, Yann Tiersen continues and expands on what he had sketched out on his debut the following year, in 1996, with his second album Rue des Cascades, recorded between Nancy and Paris.

Stylistically more solid in substance and fluid as a whole, the record introduces a significant novelty: two tracks, in fact, feature the ethereal voice of Claire Pichet. These are the title track "Rue des Cascades", a composition built on harpsichord that opens up into a final interplay of piano, violin and accordion, and "Naomi", whose lyrics are taken from Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".

It's striking to note how, in such a short space of time since his first compositions, the bar has been raised so dramatically.

The magical opening of "J'y suis jamais allé" seems carried on a warm breeze through that accordion riff that would go on to become one of the best-known themes in the soundtrack of "Amélie Poulain". The record is scattered with piano pieces (the splendid "Comptine d'été" numbers 2 and 3, the brisk "Le vieux en veut encore", the cheerful "Toujours là" and the introspective "La pièce vide"), pieces for solo violin (yet another "Mouvement introductif", "Comptine d'été n. 1", the closing "La vie quotidienne") and further sonic explorations: "Pas si simple" opens on the keys of a typewriter and draws the strings of a mandolin into its circular, cinematic motion. "Déjà loin" introduces the banjo as a prelude to the vigorous entrance of cello and accordion, while in "La chambre" it's the guitar that acts as guest on a track with a folk flavor.

And while "Soir de fete" stands out for the sheer number of overdubbed instruments (all, strictly, played by Tiersen himself), on "C'etait ici" and the truly remarkable "La fenetre" it's cellist François-Xavier Schweyer who exceptionally joins the composer. Dreamlike yet powerful, rooted in folk tradition yet somehow timeless, vaguely melancholic and just as cheerful, the music of Rue des Cascades marks the first, clear step forward of a career about to take flight.

By now a celebrity within the narrow confines of Brittany, Tiersen was preparing to conquer all of France. 1998 found the young composer busy on three fronts, all of which would prove successful in their own way. Released in quick succession, almost simultaneously, were his third album Le Phare, the soundtrack to the film "La vie rêvée des anges", and the mini-album Bästard-Tiersen, co-written with the French rock band Bästard. The film's soundtrack once again features "Rue des Cascades" sung by Claire Pichet, along with two new compositions, "La plage" and "Le phare": the former would not make it into the finished film, while the latter belongs to the sessions for the new album, to which it would lend its title without actually being included.

Le Phare, Yann Tiersen's third studio album, takes its name from the largest lighthouse in Europe, which guards the cliffs of the Ile de Ouessant, off the Breton coast. It's here, amid majestic, unspoiled landscapes and beams of light illuminating the crash of waves at night, that the composer would find the ideal setting for the genesis of his most accomplished albums. The relationship between land and sea, solitude and sociability, permeates the record in a kind of catharsis from frantic city life toward purification at the edge of the world.

The folk-pop arrangements of "Monochrome", a magnificent track sung by Dominique A – a leading name on the French pop scene – open up new horizons for Tiersen's sound and throw open the doors to nationwide fame: the track gets played on French radio, and the label Ici d'ailleurs, which had by then already signed the rising talent, hurries to reissue his two previous albums.

But it's Le Phare as a whole that marks a further step in the stylistic ascent of the composer from Brest, ever more inspired and able to paint landscapes and moods with absolute mastery. "Le Quartier" is a tense, rhythmic overture, "La rupture" follows in its footsteps while softening the tone somewhat thanks to the ethereal voice of Claire Pichet, here making her only appearance on the record. "L'arrivée sur l'ile" carries the narrative to Ouessant, introducing an expansive waltz with a Celtic aftertaste.

The accordion once again conjures magical atmospheres on "La noyée", another track that would later achieve lasting fame as part of the "Amélie Poulain" soundtrack. Celtic tradition returns, fittingly, on "Le Fromveur", the stretch of sea wedged between Brittany and the Ile de Ouessant, long a passage for trade routes and conquerors coming from the North. The languid waltz of "L'homme aux bras ballants" and the dual soul of "Sur le fil" (first solo violin, then piano) give rise to a measured, melancholic central section, abruptly interrupted by the joyful pairing of toy piano and harpsichord on "Les jours heureux". In an altogether different mood is the brief interlude "La crise", for twelve-string guitar, violin, cello and bowed mandolin. "Les bras de mer" marks Dominique A's second contribution, writing, playing piano and singing. There's still room for the dark hues of the piano on "La chute" and the off-the-cuff closing statement of "L'effondrement", accompanied by a Bontempi organ.

As his fame grew within France, Tiersen's collaborations with major figures on the scene also multiplied: those with Les Tetes Raides, Bertrand Cantat and Neil Hannon of Divine Comedy, recorded for radio broadcast, would be documented on the Breton composer's first live album, Black Session, released the following year.

And it's 1999 that saw the release of another mini-album, this time alongside the French band The Married Monk: the work was titled Tout est calme. Recorded in Bordeaux and Cancale, the record features ten short songs in which the sounds dear to Tiersen are reworked with rock textures and a languor quite different from his usual French or Celtic leanings.

It opens with the musette tango of "Plus au Sud", followed by the placid melodies of "Les grandes marées" and a fine, rocked-up version of "La crise", a track from the previous album Le Phare. The central part of the record is its most measured: "Tout est calme" tiptoes along, "La rupture" lets itself be carried by the piano and the voice of Claire Pichet, "La relève" plays on the light and shade generated by guitar and piano. "La pharmacie" and "La terrasse" mark the album's peak: the former again dances to South American rhythms, the latter is another splendid piano composition sung by Tiersen himself. And while "L'étal" thrives on the dualism of guitars and violins, "La découverte" returns to play with music box, banjo and toy piano, closing the curtain on a minimal, circling round of notes. "Tout est calme" was presented in the most prestigious French theatres and then in Japan and Singapore. In 2000, moreover, Tiersen would accompany Juliette Gréco for her show at the Barbican Centre in London.

The new millennium, Amélie and the breakthrough

J'aimerai voir notre échec

face à face un beau jour

détailler sa personne

en cerner les contours

et dans l'ambiance un peu crue

d'une ville en été

lentement m'éloigner

pour ne plus le croiser

["L'échec", L'Absente]

The new millennium brought with it global stardom. In 2001, Yann Tiersen climbed the last rung on the ladder to success. Not, however, thanks to the fine fourth studio album, "L'Absente", released on July 5 of that year on Labels/Virgin, but rather thanks to a work published just a couple of months earlier, at the end of April: the soundtrack to the film "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain". While driving, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet happened to hear a Tiersen track on the radio and was completely bewitched. From that moment on, the Breton composer's music would be forever bound to the adventures of the heroine played by Audrey Tautou, slipping like a timeless refrain down the steep alleys of Montmartre. Tiersen's music is not merely a soundtrack but a constant companion to the film's scenes, effectively becoming a second protagonist. What most people don't know, however, is that a good deal of the songs are simply tracks already present (and at times rearranged) on the albums released in the Nineties. In fact, it's almost a best-of of Tiersen's early period: "Le banquet" and "La valse des monstres" come from "La valse des Monstres", "J'y suis jamais allé", "Pas si simple", and "Soir de fête" from "Rue des Cascades", and "La noyée", "La dispute" and "Sur le fil" from "Le Phare". As for "Les jour tristes" (here in an instrumental version) and "À Quai", they would go on to star on "L'Absente" a couple of months later. There's no shortage of tracks written specifically for the film: "La valse d'Amélie", "L'autre valse d'Amélie" and "La valse des vieux os" are magical, tiptoeing waltzes, "Comptine d'une autre été: l'après midi" and "Le moulin" are yet more superb piano pieces, and finally "La redécouverte" with its folk undertones drowned in a timeless veil of melancholy. The work would go on to win the first edition of the World Soundtrack Awards.

While the "Amélie Poulain" soundtrack sold over 200,000 copies in France and reached the hearts of millions of listeners worldwide, Yann Tiersen was preparing to release his fourth studio album. L'Absente came out in the summer of 2001, presenting the public with a number of interesting new developments. Tiersen moves ever closer to the French chanson tradition. Six of the songs feature vocal lines, exactly half of the tracks on the album. And the roster of voices accompanying the Breton composer extends beyond French borders: American singer-songwriter Lisa Germano takes on "La parade" and "Le meridien", Neil Hannon of Divine Comedy sings "Les jours tristes", Dominique A returns on "Bagatelle", while actress Natacha Régnier, Tiersen's real-life partner, duets with him on "L'Échec" and "Le concert".

Recorded between London and various French and Belgian locations, mixed in London and mastered in Brussels, "L'Absente" introduces an electronic device into the already vast array of instruments used, the Ondes Martenot, played by Christine Ott, as well as featuring the Ensemble Orchestral Synaxis on several occasions. That's the case with the aforementioned "À Quai", a sumptuous opening aria that blends Ondes Martenot, toy piano, harpsichord, music box, vibraphone, banjo, mandolins, guitars, accordion and orchestral parts. "La parade" plays on the pairing of piano and English lyrics, while "Bagatelle" returns to the French language and presents a more elaborate structure, built on guitar, bass and drums but once again thickened by orchestral parts. "L'absente" is a spare piano composition, "Le jour d'avant" returns to folk and is co-written with the band Têtes Raides, "Les jours tristes" is a waltz written with Hannon and sung by him in a symphonic crescendo. The second half of the album opens with the piano touches of "L'Échec" and continues with the duet with Têtes Raides on "La lettre d'explication", punctuated by the keys of a typewriter. Lisa Germano's warm voice once again fills the vast spaces of "Le meridien", "Le concert" moves spectrally between piano touches and cello inserts, and "Le retour" closes the album on the notes of a chamber orchestra played entirely by Tiersen.

L'Absente sold 100,000 copies at home, while dates multiplied at France's most prestigious festivals and venues: Le Printemps in Bourges, Les Eurockéennes in Belfort, La Route du Rock in Saint-Malo, the Olympia in Paris. 2012 saw the release of "C'était ici", a double live album spanning his career, recorded on February 15, 16 and 17 over three nights at the Cité de la musique in Paris. In a sort of compendium of his own career, Tiersen offers listeners many of his signature pieces in versions that don't always match the studio recordings. Guests include Dominique A, Neil Hannon, Claire Pichet, and Têtes Raides. There's also a cover on the setlist: "La noyée" by Serge Gainsbourg, performed with particular passion.

The following year came another major soundtrack: that of Goodbye, Lenin, released by Parlophone. The eighteen pieces were written by Tiersen based on the feelings evoked by the film's images, once again becoming a constant companion to the scenes of Wolfgang Becker's film. The connecting thread of the soundtrack, which momentarily sets aside French shores to tip its hat to more celebrated colleagues such as Philip Glass and Michael Nyman (not forgetting, needless to say, the great Erik Satie), is the ever-present piano, around which the usual instruments duet in turn: violins, accordions, and so on.

The work is studded with magnificent tracks: starting with "Summer 78", sung by the faithful Claire Pichet, continuing with the fugue "Preparations for the last tv show" and the string crescendo of "Goodbye Lenin", all the way to the magical, intangible dance of "Lara's Castle", the pompous fresco of "The deutsch Mark is coming" and the moving "First rendez-vous" and "Watching Lara". The short compositions once again reveal Tiersen's crystalline talent and multifaceted touch, ever more masterful at translating images and emotions into music. The soundtrack won the award for best film score at the 2003 "Victoires de la musique".

That Yann Tiersen's music was gradually breaking away from its blend of modern classical and minimal-leaning folk toward more expansive territory was confirmed in October by the release of the album co-written with American singer-songwriter Shannon Wright. It's a meeting-clash between two strong artistic personalities that bursts forth across the ten tracks of Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright. The Breton's piano, violin and accordion arrangements are reinforced by guitars and drums, while the American artist's spectral vocals add allure to material that constantly plays on the edge of an invisible tension always about to explode. There's desolation and warmth ("No Mercy For She"), transalpine folk sparks ("Way To Make You See") and muted post-rock textures ("Something To Live For", "Dried Sea"), impetuous phrasing ("Callous Run") and desert wastelands ("Pale White") in a work that successfully combines the two different personalities.

With the Shannon Wright chapter closed, Tiersen once again retreated to the Île d'Ouessant to compose his fifth studio album, on which he would be joined by yet another host of illustrious guests. Les Retrouvailles came out on May 23, 2005 on Labels/Virgin/Ici d'ailleurs and contains sixteen new tracks, some solo compositions recorded on the island, others orchestral pieces recorded in Paris: on some songs, in fact, the composer and his musicians are joined by the Orchestre National de Paris. "Western" opens the album, filtering American influences through the usual array of instruments: harpsichord, violins, music box and toy piano seem to transport a dreamlike Morricone onto the cold Breton beaches. "Kala" introduces the album's first great guest: Elizabeth Fraser, voice of the Cocteau Twins, here delivering a narcoleptic ballad cradled by strings, plucked instruments (mandolin and banjo) and vibraphone. Fraser's contribution also graces the refined "Mary", likewise furnished with symphonic arrangements, its English lyrics addressing death with infinite tenderness. "Plus d'hiver" also boasts an exceptional voice: that of Jane Birkin, a skilled interpreter of a twilit track built on piano touches and enriched by violins, cellos and viola. The parade of guests continues on two tracks that blend folk with rock: "A Secret Place", marked by the deep voice of Stuart Staples of Tindersticks (with Gina Foster on backing vocals), and the evocative "Le jour de l'ouverture", a duet between Dominique A and Christophe Miossec, another musical glory from Brest.

Most of the tracks, each wonderful in its own way, don't need vocal lines at all. "Loin des villes" is a lovely chamber-pop gem, the chanson "La veillée" pairs accordion, music box and orchestral strings, and "A ceux qui son malades par mer calme" seems to rise straight out of the swell of waves. "Le matin" and "La plage" add to the album's already rich catalogue of beautiful piano pieces, "Les enfants" is an emphatic, galloping tune dressed with flutes and field recordings, while "La boulange" blends Ondes Martenot, drums and distorted guitars in a magical electro-folk-rock crossover. The hermetic "7:pm", which opens with the bells of the church in Lampaul (a small village in Finistère, Brittany) and continues on the notes of a solitary violin, is answered by the festive harmonies of "Les Retrouvailles" and the dense harpsichord weave of "La jetée", which closes the record on a baroque note. The making of the album is documented in the film "La Traversée", directed by Aurélie du Boys, which follows Tiersen from the first rehearsals in Brest to the recording sessions on Ouessant and in Paris. "Les Retrouvailles" went on to win the "Grand Prix du disque du Télégramme", an award given to works connected in some way to Brittany.

The world tour following the release of the fifth studio album was captured on a new live album titled On Tour, released in 2006 on Emi. The record features twelve songs, not without a few surprises: French rapper Diam's delivers her own reworked version of her track "Ma France à moi", while Tiersen for his part slots in the previously unreleased "1er réveil par temps de guerre" and covers "State of Shock" by Dutch punk rockers The Ex. The usual orchestration, meanwhile, gives way to electric guitars and Ondes Martenot, lending a fresh look to the best-known songs. "On Tour" was also released as a 22-track DVD (19 plus 3 bonus tracks).

In 2008 Yann Tiersen once again wove his music together with the images of a film. This time it was the documentary directed by Pierre Marcel about the life of Breton sailor Éric Tabarly, made for the tenth anniversary of his tragic death. As with "Goodbye, Lenin!", Tiersen composed the music for Tabarly based directly on the footage, resulting in just over half an hour of music. The melodies almost always unfold on the piano, often alone ("Naval", "II", "La longue route", and so on), elsewhere accompanied by a violin ("Tabarly"). Here too there are exceptions: "IV" is a piece for acoustic guitar and ukulele, while "1976" and "Yellow" bring back the full range of sounds, from toy piano to clarinet, from melodica to flute, in a lean process of layering.

In 2009 Tiersen strengthened his partnership with Christophe Miossec, composing the music for his album "Finistériens". That same year the Breton composer also appeared as a guest on the This Immortal Coil album "The Dark Age Of Love", released on Ici d'ailleurs. Tiersen had a hand in three of the tracks on the tribute album: "Red Queen", "Love Secret Domain" and "Teenage Lightning".

New horizons

After five years of silence, in 2010 Yann Tiersen returned with a new studio album, the sixth in the series, titled "Dust Lane". The record was preceded by the EP Palestine, released in three limited vinyl editions on Ici d'ailleurs. In truth, the EP is nothing more than the title track itself – a gradually building layering of orchestral and synthetic parts over which the spelling-out of the word Palestine is laid – plus four remixes of the same track by Deadverse, Chapelier Fou, The Third Eye Foundation and Tiersen himself.

The EP was effectively just an appetizer ahead of Dust Lane, released in October 2010 and marking the start of his partnership with Mute Records. Having fully made the shift to English as his means of expression, Tiersen – who during the two years spent preparing the album lost several loved ones – decided to dedicate the record to the relationship between life and death. The most obvious new element is the use of synthetic textures: the songs were first written with just an acoustic guitar in his usual studio on the Île de Ouessant, then completed with a heavy use of synths, choral parts and rich orchestral arrangements, handled in production by Ken Thomas (who had already worked with Sigur Rós). This step-by-step construction is clearly audible in almost every track, which often follow a pattern of incremental progressions starting from bare guitar notes or delicate string arrangements, before evolving into dark, disorienting atmospheres, or into sweeping orchestrations and grandiose synthetic layering.

So while "Dust Lane" does contain traces of the descriptive, soundtrack-minded Tiersen as well as the minimal, acoustic romantic, the record more often favours broad, swelling harmonic openings, jittery electronic shards and a dark, unsettling choral quality. These latter two elements owe a great deal to the involvement of Matt Elliott, who had crossed paths with the French composer on the This Immortal Coil tribute project and here joins him in a kind of full-circle meeting of decadent sonorities, crooked choirs, Mitteleuropean folk culture and the latent sense of drama that runs through much of "Dust Lane". Elliott's humming is recognisable beneath the spoken word of "Chapter Nineteen", and the stylistic kinship between the two artists is evident in the brooding romanticism of "Dark Stuff"; just as significant is the role of the weightless arrangements that give the elegiac instrumental "Till the End" a Sigur Rós-like aura. These are the most convincing tracks on an album that otherwise suffers from a certain redundancy in its insistent sonic layering, which ends up weighing down the underlying simplicity of tracks like the title track and opener "Amy", as well as the relentless violin-and-electronics loops that support the chanted spelling-out of the title on the single "Palestine". Undoubtedly an intense work, and as ever impeccably crafted, "Dust Lane" marks a significant, if not entirely fully-realised, stage in Yann Tiersen's development, confirming him as a classy and remarkably versatile artist in his relentless drive to fuse disparate musical worlds. And this time he may have even overdone it a little, since the many ideas packed into "Dust Lane" still seem to need a further process of refinement and structure to feel truly complete.

A process that was inevitably refined in his next studio work, Skyline, released just a few months later (in the spring of 2011), again on Mute Records. Tiersen, once more working alongside Ken Thomas, dives into computerised atmospheres, overdubs, mixing effects and rock emotion. The finished product carries echoes of many other artists: above all Sigur Rós, but also Explosions In The Sky, with a certain nostalgic nod to the veteran Tangerine Dream, as well as what seems like a genuine fascination with the cosmic soundscapes of Klaus Schulze. Once again, in the artist's career, there's the choice of English as his expressive tool and the growing importance given to vocals.

Skyline, while it lacks the special, startling quality of Tiersen's earliest work, still manages to deliver delicate, deeply felt emotions, with several moments of pure light, as well as ideas tied to current affairs and reflections on life: the brilliant "Another Shore", built on a cyclical melodic line that hooks the ear, wrapped in dizzying digital crescendos; "I'm Gonna Live Anyhow", with its philosophical lyrics; "The Trial", a splendid fairy-tale confection between elven voices and goblin whispers, featuring a standout turn from Syd Matters; "Monuments", the gem of the record, with spoken word riding over the march of the drums; and "Gutter", a deep, multi-layered piece, with Ernesto "Che" Guevara's 1968 speech to the UN running through the "try to reach the sea" refrain repeated relentlessly by the singers. "Exit 25 Block 20", on the other hand, is an experiment that leaves one a little puzzled, with a grotesque, unsettling scream marking out the track's rhythm.

While preparing his new album, Tiersen also found time to provide new music for the centenary staging of the opera "Fantomas" at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. By May 2014 the time was right for the release of Infinity, his eighth studio album. The record picks up the approach of the previous "Dust Lane" and "Skyline" and pushes it further still, drawing on new forms and languages. This time the writing and recording process took place between the Île de Ouessant and Iceland, and it's precisely the far North that brings fresh new elements to music with an ever more avant-garde edge: among those collaborating with Tiersen are Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap, Icelandic group Amiina, and Faroese musician Olavur Jakupsson. "Infinity" features small symphonic touches and synthetic passages, traditional instruments set alongside electronic devices, sinking into the dark litany of "Steinn" before opening up into the airy pop of "Midsummer Evening", perhaps the track that comes closest of all to the good old "Monochrome". The lyrics embrace Breton ("Ar Maen Bihan"), Icelandic ("Steinn") and Faroese (the lovely "Grønjord").

The composer from Brest thus shows, once again, his desire to renew and expand the palette of sounds that colour his music, all without ever losing sight of his roots and folk traditions, in a perpetual motion that embraces both past and future, the cliffs of his homeland and the wider world.

Back to the roots

Widely previewed by a European tour that touched Italy for a single date in Parma, Eusa has the flavour of a return to the roots for the Breton composer, who here takes on one of the most ambitious and moving projects of his long career. Eusa is simply the Breton name for Ouessant, the island 30 kilometres off the mainland that Tiersen first chose as a source of inspiration and later as his home. The album consists of ten compositions interspersed with eight improvised "paths" that lead from one place on Eusa to another. The record is, in effect, a map of the island transcribed into notes: for each location, the "natural" sounds were recorded, and over them come to life the chimes of the piano, the only instrument used on the record. A return to the purest minimalism, the only language capable of speaking with the landscape and capturing both its character and the emotions it stirs. The waltz of "Penn ar Roc'h" and the rarefied melancholy of "Penn ar Lann" are the high points of a work that moves between the apparent calm of "Yuzin" and the brisk movements of "Kadoran", perhaps closing a magic circle back to the musician's origins more than twenty years after he first appeared on the scene.

After reviving minority languages on "Infinity" and mapping the geography of the island of Ouessant in music on the self-titled "EUSA", Tiersen completes an ideal trilogy by moving from the particular to the universal, as the very title of the album seems to suggest. ALL is in a way a synthesis of his mature years: the "scattered" languages return, with a strong vocal presence; the dialogue with the environment returns too, whether pristine or built-up, through the extensive use of field recordings; and finally the roster of guests grows even wider, a practice that has, in truth, always been part of his work.

The pursuit of such marked solemnity seems to backfire on the composer, especially when guests are involved. The contributions of Iceland's Olavur Jakupsson on "Erc'h" and Breton Denez Prigent on "Gwenniliead" cover the instrumental groundwork in totally different ways (the former ethereal, the latter deep), but the vocals end up feeling like an anomalous, almost sacrilegious element within the context. Things fare better with the graceful appearance of Anna von Hausswolff on "Koad", helped also by the remarkable piano writing that accompanies the vocal line, and then with the contribution of his wife Emilie on "Pell", which links back through piano tolls to the experiments of "Dust Lane" (as do the following "Bloavezhiou" and "Heol", almost forming one long single body of work at the record's midpoint).

Amid this profusion of sounds and hall-of-mirrors games, grappling with the most baroque and perhaps most ambitious Tiersen ever, it's actually the simpler, more direct pieces that win you back over to the French composer. "Tempelhof" sounds as though it came from the same sessions as "EUSA", except that the solitary piano isn't accompanied by the sounds of the island but by voices chasing each other through the now-abandoned spaces of the former Berlin airport, as if symbolising the renewed symbiotic relationship between humanity and a place handed back to nature's slow work. The real gem of this record, however, is its shortest chapter, "Aon", a brief orchestration for traditional instruments and toy piano that swells with an epic quality that is finally both subtle and majestic at once. The piano that leads "Prad" is the last, slow stroll through unspoiled nature before the Breton-language spoken word of "Beure Kentan" closes the album in an en plein air setting, now stripped of any musical accompaniment.

25 years of career: "Portrait"

At the end of 2019 Yann Tiersen released another sprawling, river-like work, Portrait. On the eve of his 25th year in the business, the Breton has fun revisiting an equal number of passages from his vast body of work, adding just three new tracks to the tracklist, and he does so in suitably refreshed clothing, making use of his home studio The Euskal (again on Ouessant) for a series of live-to-tape recordings on 24-track 2-inch tape, later mixed down to quarter-inch stereo tape before being mastered from tape to vinyl. An analogue approach, then, also useful for crystallising the magic and energy of the moment.

Accompanied every step of the way by his wife Emilie and by Olavur Jakupsson and Jens L. Thomsen, Tiersen reshapes his own back catalogue, at times essentially tracing over it, as with the famous "Comptine d'Un Autre Été (L'Après-Midi)", which remains a piano sonata, or with "The Waltz Of The Monsters", "Rue des Cascades" and "The Wire", which don't differ much from their earlier versions, or with a "Monochrome" embellished by harpsichord, in which the deep voice of Gruff Rhys replaces that of Dominique A. Strange as it may seem, the oldest tracks are also the least "revisited".

Partly escaping this logic is the "Introductory Movement", rewritten with a more atmospheric, theatrical vision alongside Stephen O'Malley, proof that it's perhaps the contributions of fellow musicians that shift these pieces into a different gear. It's curious that O'Malley steps in to unsettle the placid atmosphere of "Prad", the last wonderful piano roundelay to come from Tiersen's pen, released this very year on "All", as it seems to testify to the Breton's "open" conception of his own music, understood as something in constant flux – which makes the claim that the versions on Portrait are the "definitive" takes of these pieces at least a little curious.

We obviously can't fail to mention the contributions of Blonde Redhead on the previously unreleased "Closer", an intense fresco for piano and synth, and the symbolic closer "Thinking Like A Mountain", arm in arm with the "usual" O'Malley and recited by John Grant. Symbolic because the piece, drawn from Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac", is a manifesto of the ecological thinking Tiersen identifies with, he who has chosen the simplicity and slow pace of a remote Atlantic island over the comforts of frantic, overthinking modern life.

After the Portrait project, on which he was accompanied by a lavish retinue of guests, with Kerber, released at the end of August 2021, the Breton composer seems to rediscover the condition most congenial to describing his existential geographies. The seven tracks on the new album, each named after a specific place, unfold through the pairing of piano and electronics, a blend devoted to subtraction, as if entering the places Tiersen paints required – and indeed it does – falling silent, showing respect, feeling like a guest rather than an owner. Even when the piano pushes forward and takes over, as on the title track, named after a chapel on Ouessant, it's always through a crescendo that turns into cascades of notes breaking the soft calm that reigns within the movements.

There's no doubt, too, that a piece like "Ar Maner Kozh" represents one of those roundelays that Yann Tiersen has in the past painted with unmatched mastery, so much so that the most likely comparison is with the youthful experiments of "La Valse des Monstres". A return to his roots, in every sense. The stillness of "Kerdrall" is only briefly disturbed by noises creeping between the keys in a faint background murmur before the piano launches into a flight that traces ascending motions. The electronic reverberations that close "Ker Yegu" are perhaps the furthest point the album dares to reach, further even than the lighthouses watching over the jagged coastline of an island that, note by note, we too have come to know.

Berlin and electronics: a new chapter?

In the summer of 2022, out of nowhere, Yann Tiersen returned with a new album titled 11 5 18 2 5 18. You read that string of codes and think Yann Tiersen has done it again. But no: this time the Breton composer hasn't set the remotest corners of the Ile de Ouessant to music, carefully supplying us with the exact coordinates. Nothing could be further removed, geographically speaking too: the album's nine tracks were born in Berlin out of a session of experiments jotted down ahead of a performance at a festival in the German capital.

Which, once again, proves itself a place capable of inspiring and "channelling" every artist's sound in a very specific direction: in this case, one that leads to synthesizers. While it's true that over the years Tiersen had repeatedly shown an interest in electronic territory, it's equally undeniable that he had never pushed so far into synthetic terrain before, generally preferring to blend it all with played instruments. Here he positions himself halfway between electronica and rock, then, without ever losing sight of the modern classical sound that made Yann's fortune and remains the reason he's known the world over.

Here, though, the scenario changes: everything (or almost) becomes synthetic, the vocals – when present – turn robotic, krautrock influences are not in short supply, and it feels like stepping into a dystopian future, albeit not too distant a one. Above all, a beat appears that makes the material almost usable on certain dark-tinged dancefloors. At times the fabric takes a spacey turn, as if we'd stumbled by accident into some parallel universe sketched out by Air; elsewhere the pulse fades out and we find ourselves back in atmospheres more congenial to the artist and his audience, where the piano reclaims its space. The closing track is a bridge to the past, namely a heartfelt, even more evocative version of "Mary", a song from the album "Les Retrouvailles" originally sung by Elizabeth Fraser and here performed by Tiersen's wife Émilie, known by her stage name Quinquis.

In the spring of 2025 Yann Tiersen returns with an album that, as its title suggests, has two distinct souls – Rathlin from a Distance | The Liquid Hour – but a single source of inspiration: once again an island, though this time it's Rathlin, off the coast of Ireland. The French composer chooses not to choose, bringing together – or rather placing side by side – modern classical and electronica in two works distinct in sound but united in their source of inspiration. "Rathlin from a Distance" is thus a collection of piano sonatas, while "The Liquid Hour" is an outpost of Tiersen's more experimental soul, between electronica, minimalism and ambient.

The bittersweet "Ninnog", the rarefied "Rathlin from a Distance" and the placid "Fastnet", perhaps the most successful of these compositions, are the best moments of the album's first half. None of these pieces, however, manages to hold a candle to the many beloved piano movements Tiersen has written over his many years of prolific activity. The roundelays of "Nordragøta", first leaden then reconciled, and the chasing notes of "Bigton" are numbers well known to the Breton composer's audience, for better or worse.

On the flip side, “The Liquid Hour” redeems itself with a range of eclectic, and in some ways new, solutions for Yann Tiersen: take the instrumental crescendo of “Stourm”, almost operatic in its bare-bones essentiality, before digital sounds take over to the rhythm of drum machines and more or less tangible synths. “Ninnog at Sea” even harks back to his early work, with that electric harpsichord sound weaving baroque textures onto which postmodern visions are grafted.

In the icy techno of “Arne”, the spotlight finally falls on the voice of Quinquis, the stage name behind which hides Emilie, the composer's wife. The electronic rhapsody of “The Liquid Hour” somehow condenses Tiersen's various musical impulses, fading out on notes that even the least attentive listener will recognize as echoes of his best-known work. “Dolores” draws the curtain amid ambient textures, synthetic outposts and orchestral openings, engineering a finale of cinematic impact that is, at last, genuinely moving.

Contributions by Antonio Ciarletta (“Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright”), Raffaello Russo (“Dust Lane”) and Rossella De Falco (“Skyline”)

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