Many of you may recognize the name Glen Hansard, singer of Irish band The Frames and more recently, star of the movie Once. While I’m only vaguely familiar with The Frames’ material, a couple months ago I actually got his collaboration (from my mom, funnily enough) with Once co-star/pianist Markéta Irglová called The Swell Season and it quickly became one of my favorite albums. The album is an absolutely beautiful blend of quiet piano, guitar and cello interplay and the perfectly complimenting voices of Irglová and Hansard. In addition to being featured at both Coachella and Bonnaroo this year, the song “Falling Slowly” was featured in the movie Once and has been nominated for both an Oscar and a Grammy. While the song unfortunately lost at the Grammys (to “Love You I Do” from Dreamgirls), I’m really hoping that the two artists pick up an Oscar this Sunday, they sure as hell deserve it. If you like The Mountain Goats, Damien Rice, any kind of folksy, mellow stuff, definitely check out the mp3s and tune in on Sunday to see if they take home an Oscar. Enjoy!
From The Swell Season:
O my goodness, thank you so much for posting this!
I just heard falling slowly today in my vocals class, it’s absolutely beautiful! I love it, it’s possibly one of my favourite songs now!
Thank you so much!
no problem, glad you like it!
I have three different versions of that song in my itunes library, once soundtrack, frames album and the swell season.
I just Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová perform on the Oscars! It was so lovely! When they actually won the Oscar it was too sad Marketa got cut off right before she was about to give her acceptance speech! So I thought it was so cute that Jon Stewart let her Marketa come back out and give her thank you speech! She spoke with true honestly and sweetness! It makes the song and her spirit even more special!! ROCK ON \|/
JT