Yann Tiersen has been on a roll of late delivering one exceptional album after another. Following last year’s Kerber, the French composer has announced the release of a new album titled 11 5 18 2 5 18. As with previous records, in particular Kerber, on the upcoming album Tiersen continues to venture further into electronic territories. Brought to life in his studio The Eskal in the island of Ushant where he lives, 11 5 18 2 5 18 stemmed from “experimentation in the studio ahead of a performance at Berlin’s modular and synthesiser festival, Superbooth”, as the press release explains. “Using samples as his source, Tiersen has resampled, reprogrammed and recomposed audio to create entirely new tracks unrecognisable and decontextualised from their original versions.”
11 5 18 2 5 18 is out on June 10th through Mute and ahead of it Tiersen has shared two riveting cuts from it, the title track and ‘16 15 21 12 12. 2 15 10 5 18’. Both are offered with visuals created by Sam Wiehl and you can watch them below.
After sharing ‘Ker al Loch’, Yann Tiersen is giving us another tender and tantalizing taste from his upcoming album, Kerber, with a video for new single ‘Ker Yegu’. Like his previous albums, Kerber is ingrained with a sense of place, and is named after a chapel in a small village on the Breton island of Ushant where he lives. The video that accompanies ‘Ker Yegu’ opens a window into the life and the people of Ushant and was directed by Murat Gökmen. Watch it below and watch out for the release of Kerber on August 27th through Mute.
In other related news, Yann Tiersen has announced a worldwide tour, with dates in North America this November preceding several shows in Europe in early 2022.
Yann Tiersen has announced the release of a new album, the follow up to 2019’s Portrait. Entitled Kerber, it is reportedly his most electronic effort to date, indicating a further step in the direction taken in previous albums whilst also venturing into a new territory. On the upcoming album, and as the press release describes, “the piano is the source, but electronics are the environment that they exist within. Tiersen explains:
“You may get this intuitive thinking of, ‘oh it’s piano stuff’, but actually it’s not. I worked on piano tracks to begin with but that’s not the core of it, they are not important. The context is the most important thing – the piano was a precursor to create something for the electronics to work around.”
The French composer worked on the album in his studio The Eskal, an abandoned discotheque turned into studio, venue and community centre, in the island of Ushant where he lives. Kerber, as with previous albums, is steeped in the sense of place, taking its name from a chapel in a small village on the island, with each track linked to a place mapping out the immediate landscape that surrounds Ushant.
Kerber will see the light of day on August 27th through Mute and ahead of it, Tiersen will release a book of sheet music on July 20th, featuring the album’s seven pieces presented for Solo Piano, with preface by Tiersen.
‘Ker al Loch’, the first single to be let loose from the upcoming album, serves as a perfect taste for what’s to come. The single is offered with an accompanying video directed by Sam Wiehl, who had this to say about it:
“Using the abstracted geographical imagery created by Katy Ann Gilmore [the artist behind the album’s artwork] as a starting point, and further referencing the coast line of Ushant and the natural world, we created imagery (ranging from fantastical re-imagines of landscape, seas and atmospheric conditions to the processes in micro biology and chemical reaction) to capture the beauty and scale of Tiersen’s composition.”
French composer Yann Tiersen has a new album on the way, titled ALL and due in February. The forthcoming record is the first recorded in Tiersen’s The Eskal, an abandoned discotheque in the island of Ushant turned into studio, venue and community centre. As with previous efforts, ALL is mostly sung in Breton, and it features vocal contributions from guests Ólavur Jákupsson, Denez Prigent, Emilie Tiersen and Gaëlle Kerrien. Swedish artist Anna Von Hausswolff also collaborated with Tiersen on one of the album’s tracks, ‘Koad’, now available to stream with an accompanying video. ‘Koad’ features field recording of a redwood forest in Devon, near the Schumacher College, an institution cited as an important influence on the album which “helped to shape ALL’s overriding theme: ecology, environment and our connection to nature.”. Tiersen has described the institution as “a concentration of hope in a small place”. Watch the video below.
Just before the year draws to a close, Yann Tiersen is following up last year’s outstanding album ∞ (Infinity). Eusa, an album in the form of a book of sheet music, will see the light of day tomorrow. Named after the island of Ushant off the coast of Tiersen’s native Brittany, the effort features ten brand new piano pieces, each related to a specific location in Ushant. Here’s what the French composer said about it:
“Ushant is more than just a home – it’s a part of me. The idea was to make a map of the island and, by extension, a map of who I am. To begin with I chose ten locations on the island and made a series of field recordings at each of them. The pieces of piano music I then went on to write are named after these locations, and the sheet music for each piece is accompanied by a GPS coordinate and a photograph of the site taken by Emilie Quinquis.”
Tiersen has also created a website to accompany this release with photographs and field recordings from each location.
And to entice us further, Tiersen has shared an excerpt from the beautiful ‘Porz Goret’, with a video filmed and recorded at Porz Goret. Here it is.
Yann Tiersen is set to perform a series of live shows in May 2016, including two dates at London’s Barbican on May 7th and May 10th. Consisting of a collection of solo piano and violin works, Eusa’s ten new piano pieces will be the core of these performances.
Yann Tiersen is offering a visual accompaniment for ‘Meteorites’, the closing track from his recently released album, ∞ (Infinity). RobisRob directs. Here it is.
