Yann Botrel

Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulen (known to Western audiences simply as "Amelie") was a magic realist romantic comedy by French auteur Jean Pierre-Jeunet which introduced French composer Yann Tiersen to listeners worldwide. Tiersen's whimsical, deceptively simple instrumental music was equally influenced by composers like Chopin and Satie, as well as contemporaries such as Michael Nyman and Philip Glass, and emerged as an enjoyable blend of European classical music and French folk. Playing a variety of instruments from piano and violin to accordion and xylophone, Tiersen composed a number of delicate, charming pieces which suited the somewhat magical mood of the film very well and deservedly made him a star in his own right.

Kerber, the new album from Yann Tiersen, is a beautifully textured, highly immersive and thoughtfully constructed electronic world to step inside of. Piercing piano keys merge with swirling soundscapes, as Tiersen explores the possibilities of infinite smallness. The album was created and recorded at The Eskal, the studio he built on Ushant (the island where he lives, located 30 kilometres off the west coast of Brittany in the Celtic Sea), and Kerber is named after a chapel in a small village on the island while each track sonically maps the landscape that surrounds Tiersen’s home.

Yann Tiersen, a star in his homeland of France, is best known to international audiences for his epic film soundtracks for Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie and Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye Lenin! A multi-instrumentalist composer of great whimsy and melancholy, Tiersen borrows from French folk music, chanson, musette waltz and street music, as well as rock, avant-garde, and classical and minimalist influences, and is revered for his moving performances.
On Tour is a live album by Yann Tiersen. It was originally released in 2006 and features songs from Tiersen's past albums as well as some previously unreleased compositions.

Les Retrouvailles is the fifth studio album by French musician Yann Tiersen. Released in 2005 through Ici, d'ailleurs… record label, it features a number of high-profile guest vocalists, both French and Anglophone alike: Christophe Miossec, Dominique A, Elizabeth Fraser (of the Cocteau Twins), Jane Birkin, and Stuart Staples (of the Tindersticks). As is customary with his albums, Tiersen showcases his multi-instrumental skills, which on the album encompasses the accordion, piano, mandolin, and harpsichord, among others.

It's a rich, moody, multi-layered work that finds Tiersen showing off his instrumental prowess and playing a wide array of instruments from strings to synthesizers on his haunting classical/rock compositions. Vocal-oriented tracks like "Fuck Me" show Tiersen's poppier side, achieving an infectious, anthemic sound somewhere between M83 and Broken Social Scene, while "Ashes" seems more in line with the extensive soundtrack work he's done in the past as it builds gradually from tension-building strings and horror-film piano plunking to fuzzed-out guitar squalls and choral vocal chants. The dominant feeling on Dust Lane, though, is that of an artist who reveres Ravel and the Swans in equal measure, as exemplified by "Dark Stuff" and "Palestine"…

With his whimsical, melancholy music, Yann Tiersen has become a sought-after composer, not only for his soundtrack work, but in his own right. Borrowing from French folk music, chanson, musette waltz, and street music, as well as rock, avant-garde, and classical and minimalist influences, Tiersen's deceptively simple style has been likened to Chopin, Erik Satie, Philip Glass, and Michael Nyman.