yann tiersen discography

ambient music, or music for the overthinker

similar to books, my music recommendations usually come from the authors and artists that I am reading and listening to themselves. I would never read dostoevsky if vonnegut hadn't mentioned it in slaughterhouse five. similarly, I first have the idea of listening to an ambient music artist after reading spotify commentary on how matty's favorite genre of music is ambient music (songs like an encounter, ILIWYS, etc). yann tiersen comes naturally to mind, as I really enjoy his classic amélie soundtrack as well as song from his album eusa and all. however, listening to his entire discography is another thing.

this is by far the longest discography that I've listened to. 13 studio albums, 3 soundtrack albums, 3 live albums, and various collaborations with other artists. this sums up to 369 songs in my spotify playlist, which equates to approximately 15 to 17 hours of listening. I started in the middle of august and finished in the end of november. I listen to an average of 5 songs daily. I take breaks on the weekends, as it is too much doing anything on a daily basis.

yann tiersen

yann tiersen is a french breton musician and composer. to be more specific, he comes from the brittany region in france. brittany is home to the famous breton shirt, also known as the marinière, which is often worn by sailors to make it easier to see men who have fallen overboard into the sea. in brittany, french and breton (a celtic language) are spoken. keep in mind the latter as it would influence his music substantially towards the end of his career. yann tiersen helps me understand what home means to him and to myself.

coco chanel wearing a marinière

in his own words, yann tiersen is an artist who defies categorisation. don't be fooled by his once association with the amelie soundtrack. his compositions are a fusion of acoustic and electronic elements, resulting in an otherworldly soundscape that is both emotive and transformative. yann tiersen's inventive approach consistently impresses and surprises, making every performance a unique and unexpected experience. I completely agree. yann tiersen is not a one hit wonder with amelie, he is more than that.

my favorite part about his childhood is how at 13, he broke his violin, bought an electric guitar, and form a rock band. he approaches music rather freely, prioritizing intuition and play rather than sheer music theory. this explains why his music sounds really liberating: let's live in an enormous world of sound we can use randomly, with no rules at all. let's play with sound, forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct — the same way punk did. I think this may just explain why his music always evolves with every new album.

yann tiersen's music really teaches me how to listen. I have a bad habit where I would be constantly reading the lyrics to look for that golden sentence or look up genius annotations for possible themes that the song have. in the process, I forgot how to enjoy and truly listen, which is what music is about. during the curation of his discography, I find myself slowly learning the ropes and listening more attentively. I will miss starting my day with his music.

yann tiersen's approach to music is also similar to bill wurtz (rule 1: there are no rules). together, they help me unlearn and write flash fictions more freely. at the end of the day, I guess that's what art is all about: the possibilities are endless. you can do anything.

dissecting discography

here is a list of yann tiersen's EPs, mini albums, and albums in chronological order

C collaboration
L live

S soundtrack

[] single / shorter than EPs / remixes

1. la valse des montres / the waltz of the monsters (1995)
2. rue des cascade / cascade street (1996)
3. le phare / the lighthouse (1998)
4. bastard — tiersen (1998) C
5. everything is calm (1999) C
6. black session: yann tiersen (1999) L
7. amélie (2001) S
8. l'absente / the absent (2001)
9. c'était ici / it was here (2002) L
10. goodbye lenin! (2003) S
11. [on aime, on aide / fnac-fidh (2003)]
12. yann tiersen and shannon wright (2004) C
13. les retrouvailles / the reunions (2005)
14. on tour (2006) L
15. tabarly (2008) S
16. the dark age of love (2010) C
17. [palestine (2010)]
18. dust lane (2010)
19. skyline (2011)
20. [a midsummer evening (2014)]
21. ∞ / infinity (2014)
22. ESB (2015) C
23. ouragan / hurricane (2016) S
24. EUSA (2016)
25. [va hent (2018)]
26. [the lost notebook (2018)]
27. [hent (2018)]
28. all (2019)
29. portrait (2019)
30. [portrait remixed (2020)]
31. [the anatomy of clouds (2021)]
32. kerber (2021)
33. 11 5 18 2 5 18 (2022)
34. avant la chute (2022)
35. [kerber (remixes) (2022)]
36. [kergelen (2023)]
37. [nivlenn (2023)]
38. [kerber (solo piano) (2023)]

although this is the complete list, for the sake of comprehensibility, I will narrow my interpretation down to what was included in his own spotify playlist.

the waltz of the monsters on the cascade street next to the lighthouse (1995 - 1999)

yann tiersen's debut album, the waltz of the monsters, to my surprise, was used for tod browning's freaks and also yukio mishima's noh play the damask drum. during this phase of his composition, an element that we see present throughout is the playfulness and witiness of his music. there's no reason why, but I really like the name. waltz of the monsters. time and time again, only beautiful things are permitted to waltz and dance: tchaikovsky's waltz of the flowers, waltz of the snowflakes, dance of the sugar plum fairy. have you ever since monsters waltz or dance? even their movements are animated awkwardly. this contradiction is what I love about his music, it shows his clear steer away from tradition into something more liberating.

although cascade street is not a soundtrack album, a part of it was featured in the film amélie. as it turns out, rue des cascades is not a real place. however, we learn about the place from reading the track titles. j'y suis jamais allé, I've never been there. pas si simple. not that simple. déjà loin. already gone. tourjours là. still here. c'était ici. it was there. the song that bears the album name, which was sung by claire pichet, also discloses a bit about the place. when the narrator is awake or asleep, she can't hear or feel anything. yet, the cascade washed her. cascade could be a waterfall. however, when used as a medical term, cascade coagulation refers to the process of blood clotting. the narrator may be bleeding from something. her own past, perhaps?

what we know about yann tiersen is his willingness for experimentation. not only with his music, but also his life, and the two feed on one another. in composing this album, yann tiersen spent 2 months living in a rented home at the end of the english channel (the most north-western point of france) on the isle of ushan (ouessant in breton). besides his seclusion on the island, the lighthouse itself was a driving force that brought about this album. music is less of having people look or listen to the player, but of the player and composer to look and listen to the sounds around them. here, during nightfall, yann tiersen would watch the phare du créac'h, one of the most powerful lighthouse in the world. I relate to this part, as in my childhood, the color yellow and the lighthouse itself would always remind me of the happiness. this album also has an equivalent to the previous album's cascade street song. monochrome is an inner monologue produced by his collaboration with dominique A. keep an eye on this singer cause he would go on to collaborate with yann tiersen in his future albums.

phare du créac'h, ushant, france

hello amélie, goodbye lenin! (1999 - 2008)

a thing that characterizes yann tiersen's music during this period is collaboration, soundtracks, and live music. everything is calm, the absent, it was here, yann tiersen & shannon wright, and the reunions are hugely collaborative. everything is calm is a collaboration mini album with the married monk, claire pichet, and olivier mellano. the absent and the live album it was here were characterized by the collaboration of the 35-member ensemble orchestral synaxis and other notable long time collaborations such as dominique A (singer of the song monochrome in the lighthouse). however, this would not be the only times where he collaborates with an orchestra, as after his co-album with shannon wright, his studio album les retrouvailles would go on to collaborate with the orchestre national de paris.

it can be said that this phase was the peak of yann tiersen's life. amélie brought him international recognition and earned him a chance to work on goodbye lenin soundtrack. both films end up winning best film award at the european film awards, césar awards (french national film awards), and other prizes differently for each movie. yann tiersen earned the césar award for best music written for a film, and of the world soundtrack academy award for the film amélie. in 2006, he would go on world tour and record his live album on tour. in 2008, he would produce the soundtrack for the film about the french sailor éric tabarly. tabarly was a two-time champion of the single-handed trans-atlantic race, and father of french yachting. the documentary was released in june 2008, exactly ten years after tabarly's death. this would then marks yann tiersen's retreat from fame to continue creating his music.

éric tabarly in 1975

dust lane, sky line. infinity, all. portrait, eusa. kerber, 11 5 18 2 5 18 (2010 - 2023)

beside collaborating with the dark age of love in 2010, ESB and ouragan in 2015, yann tiersen mainly focuses on producing his studio albums and refining his approach to music. can you see how his album names mirror one another? dust lane, skyline. look down and then up. infinity, all. look further beyond. portrait, eusa. look back into yourself and your home. kerber, 11 5 18 2 5 18. he breaks the boundaries that words can convey and dives into the world of electronics.

before dust lane, there was also an EP called palestine. interestingly, the dirt road into gaza also served as the influence for the title dust lane. during this time, yann tiersen lost his mother and close friend, so the album itself deals with the theme of mortality.

of all his albums during this phase, my favorites remain eusa, all, and kerber. they are easy to understand and they connect with what makes a person who they are in the first place: home.

eusa, ushant, oeussant. home.

in 2015, yann tiersen came back to the island, the place that witnessed his birth, where its native language, breton, is in danger of disappearing, with a mission.

10 tracks, 
10 pictures,
10 locations,
10 coordinates,
10 field recordings.

eusa is more than just a home, it’s part of me. 
the idea was to make a map of the island and by extension a map of who I am.

I remember listening to yann tiersen's pern and penn ar lann every time I wake up the months after my breakup. I saw hope glimmering. a fresh start to start things right. I remember mistaking penn in penn ar lann for pennsylvania. now I learn that penn ar lann in breton refers to finistère, the westernmost part of france.

ever since eusa, yann tiersen also uses his mother tongue more often in his other albums. tracks in the album all were all in breton. koad, wood. erc'h, snow. pell, far. bloavezhioù, year. heol, sun. gwennilied, barn swallow. aon, fear. prass, prairie. beure kentañ, first morning. also his album kerber. kerber, kerpert. ar maner kozh, the old manor. my translations are limited as google translate doesn't have breton, and I'm piecing together the bits I can get through on globse's discrete translations. however, I have to admit that breton is a beautiful language, and the music that comes out of those album sounds like home.

listen to kerber live in ushant here

ninnog

I could have ended here, but there is something about this man that makes me appreciate his outlook to music and life so much. in summer 2023, yann tiersen goes on tour once again, 17 years after his tour in 2006, he returns to touring with a fresh perspective. he tours by boat, this time with his wife émilie quinquis, who's also a musician. he reminds me of what the french language always promises. adventures.

‘autonomy is so important – to be the engine yourself’: why yann tiersen is now touring by sailboat
the guardian

ninnog starts out with eight commitments. honor the land, embrace nature. celebrate the beauty of minority languages. resist routines, listen. challenge the capitalist norms that commodify artistic expression. embrace the interconnectedness of all beings, and taking good care of ninnog, the boat that plays the vital role in their quest.

yann tiersen, together with antoine de saint-exupéry, the van gogh brothers, the curies, the existentialists, plum village, and videoclub, have been the reason why I want to understand france and its culture. although yann tiersen's tour in the us was 4 years ago, I do wish that he would come to philadelphia one day, or that I would be able to see him on tour for once. that's pretty much my wish for the forthcoming 2024.

in the end of the day, his music doesn't only invite me to see him on tours, but to own the lifestyle that he's living. make his music my own lifestyle.