YANN TIERSEN

Maturing French avant-garde minimalist effortlessly gets grandiose.

Since rising to international fame with the Cesar-winning music for the 2001 film Amelie, multiinstrumentalist Tiersen has stressed that he’s not a soundtrack composer, but his music is often chosen by filmmakers. He sees himself more in the tradition of

Glass and Nyman, but emphasises that classical, pop and other genres should know no frontiers “because life is like that”. He’s worked with everyone from Jane Birkin to Elizabeth Fraser, and his tenth studio album features guest vocalists such as Anna von Hausswolff. Yet it’s a shimmering, atmospheric whole rather than distinct elements. It’s a mood modulator, changing the space you’re in to somewhere reflective and meditative. His first recording from his home studio on Ushant, a small island between Brittany and Cornwall, it’s rich in references to light, dust, sea, snow, echoes and time. Often mournful, it however attains the sense of euphoria, his timing of surges, swells and switches exquisite. Tempelhof and Usal Road use field recordings from Berlin and California, the former unleashing a crashing-chords surprise coda. Birdsong seeps in throughout, and Tiersen finds paths for the obviously beautiful to acknowledge darkness.