Composer who Scores—Yann Tiersen - Brief Article - Interview

Interview, Oct, 2001 by Jonathan Moskowitz

HE MAKES THE SOUND OF TYPING BEAUTIFUL

"When I'm working, I need to be alone," says composer/songwriter Yann Tiersen. "In a big city like Paris, it's easy to feel alone, so it's a good place for me to write music." As a child in Britanny, Tiersen received formal classical music training but quickly concluded that a life in the academy was not for him. "The training gave me a good technical basis for writing songs, but after hearing rock music I realized I wanted to have my own career. I was listening to the Stooges, David Bowie, Joy Division. I don't know if they were influences, but I envied them and they made me want to compose my own songs."

Americans not already familiar with his music for Erick Zonca's La Vie Revee des Anges [The Dreamlife of Angels, 1998] can catch next month's Amelie (starring Audrey Tautou), for which Tiersen wrote the critically acclaimed soundtrack, and then with L'Absent (Labels), his fifth studio effort.

This last is an example of a mature French songwriting that has little in common with the beat-centered electronica of Air and Daft Punk-except, perhaps, for the enthusiasm with which it absorbs outside influences. On L'Absent, Tiersen confidently juxtaposes disparate musical elements--classic Parisian street accordion with Philip Glass--inspired piano figures, dramatic orchestral touches with the sound of electric typewriters--and collaborates with an international cast of singers, including America's Lisa Germano, England's Neil Hannon and France's Dominque A.

"There's no particular theme to the album, but generally it's about missing people, as well as taking negative energy and putting it to positive uses," says Tiersen, and one wonders if there's a bit of autobiography here. "When I got to Paris, I didn't know anyone, and for a while I had no friends here. Parisians are sometimes difficult about people coming from outside the city, but I was just excited to be face-to-face with some social reality, and the ethnic and cultural mix of the city."

Jonathan Moskowitz is a freelance writer living in New York.