YANN TIERSEN..."Let's live in an enormous world of sound... forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct – the same way punk did."

“Yann Tiersen has been honing his musical aesthetic since he could stand on two legs.” 


He started learning piano at the age of four, taking up violin at the age of six and receiving classical training at musical academies. Then, at the age of 13, he chose to alter his destiny, breaking his violin into pieces, buying a guitar and forming a rock band.
Tiersen saw acts like Nirvana, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Television and Suicide. 






When his band broke up a few years later, instead of hunting for some new musicians, he bought a cheap mixing desk, an eight-track reel, and started recording music solo with a synth, sampler and drum machine, poring over the grooves of old records on the hunt for loops and orchestral strings to plunder.

"One day I thought, instead of spending days on research and listening to tons of records to find the nearest sound of what I have in mind, why don't I fix this fucking violin and use it?" 

Thus the beginning of Tiersen recording music alone with guitar, violin and accordion, guided not by the classical canon, but by intuition and his vision of "a musical anarchy".

"Let's live in an enormous world of sound we can use randomly, with no rules at all," says Tiersen, of his vision. "Let's play with sound, forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct – the same way punk did."

1995's albums La Valse Des Monstres and Rue Des Cascades, a collection of short pieces recorded with toy piano, harpsichord, violin, accordion and mandolin. Six years later, the record several tracks, along with a couple of Tiersen originals, was used on the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie (2001).

Tiersen's status as one of the most pioneering and original artists of his generation and commencing a run of successful albums like 2001's L'Absente and 2005's Les Retrouvailles.  Tiersen also took his music out around the world, playing shows with a full orchestra and an amplified string quartet.

And following the box-office success of Amelie, Tiersen's skills as a soundtracker were much in demand, leading to scores for the likes of Wolfgang Becker's tragicomedy Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

Dust Lane is the sixth album by Yann Tiersen and is, inescapably, “an album preoccupied with mortality.” During its recording, Tiersen lost his mother and a close friend, and the music is about life not as something lost, but something to be lived. "Not a sad thing, but a colourful thing - an experience sometimes painful, but also joyful," says Tiersen. 

 Dust Lane is the product of serendipity, of experimentation as a means of discovery, and the happy accident that breathes life into a new idea. The album began as a simple, song-based album, sketched out by Tiersen alone on acoustic guitar, mandolin, bouzouki and toy drums gradually took on new layers and added complexities. "I took some distance and decided to deconstruct most of the songs as I was quite tired with the traditional structure of chorus, bridge, etc," he says.

Dust Lane features an extended cast. Joining on drums is Dave Collingwood, who Tiersen discovered while on tour in Paris. Matt Elliott, a solo artist contributes lugubrious vocals, notably on 'Chapter 19'.

Dust Lane is an array of vintage synths, analogue textures, electric guitars and bass bring layers of fuzz and distortion. Songs slip from their moorings, take off on new and unexpected currents. "My plan was also to play with contrast between electric and quite dense parts and more sober and minimal quiet parts including piano and strings," he adds. So, voices join together in chorus, arcing violins and crashing drums build towards mighty fanfares – but then, clouds part, squall recedes to silence, and mournful piano and strings guide you home.

Personally I listen to tracks such as Dark Stuff and Chapter 19.