Yann Tiersen first came to my attention at the time of The Divine Comedy's greatest hits collection. A couple of bonus tracks at the time came from his collaborative radio session with Neil Hannon, and they were lovely, but nothing to get specifically excited about. A few years later, they collaborated again on a track called 'Les Jours Tristes', which would end up on Tiersen's 'L'Absente' album, and as a Divine Comedy b-side. Tiersen is big in France, but in the UK, that naturally means nothing.
Anyhow, the reason 'Les Jours Tristes' was important, was that it was also to be featured in the film 'Amelie', a film already gaining a bit of word-of-mouth appreciation at the time. I remember seeing an advert for the film, hearing the music, and being hooked. Since then, the film and the soundtrack have been completely entwined in my mind - I can't imagine one without the other.
The music on this album is quintessentially French, or at least I assume it is. To be honest, I'm no expert. Tiersen uses accordian, harpsichord, piano, tuned percussion and mandolin to great effect, backed with strings most of the time. It fits the mood of the film perfectly, and is a joy to listen to in its own right. Tiersen achieves this despite mining his own back catalogue for contributions to the record - it sounds remarkably like a complete piece of work, with this in mind. Even the two tracks which appear to stand out - 'Guilty', an English language song from the 30s, and 'Si tu n'étais pas là', a French tack from the same era - complement the slightly old-fashioned but homely feel of the record beautifully.
Because the vast majority of my music collection is from this country, or America, the work of Yann Tiersen is like a brief glimpse into what might be glibly referred to as world music. It always makes me feel mildly guilty that my knowledge of other types of music is so limited. Maybe one day I'll investigate further down one of these routes, but for now, this is a record to keep coming back to.
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