Those who have followed Glen Hansard’s career since his Academy Award-winning turn in the film ‘Once’ will have witnessed one artistic arc: the journey of a Dublin busker who cut his teeth on the greats – Dylan, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen – and followed the path of the troubadour to great effect. But there is another thread running through Hansard’s musicianship; in his decades as lead singer of Irish stalwarts The Frames, rock and folk ambitions coexisted with moments of strangeness, intimacy, and stillness.
Today, Hansard announces ‘This Wild Willing’, his fourth full-length album (out April 12th via Anti- Records) and a collection of songs that follows this second path, where he marries the sonic inventiveness of the best of his work in The Frames with the discipline he’s found as a songwriter and lyricist in his solo career.
Lead track ‘I’ll Be You, Be Me’ finds Hansard weighing the risks of such vulnerability, his restrained vocal masking the fury of the underlying instrumental’s building storm, and to which Hansard advises “on first listen, please turn it up loud in your head phones!”
“I’ll be you, be me and I’ll be you/I’ll take your truth, your lies, your secrets,” he sings, negotiating the consuming potential of desire. There is danger here, but it is without rancor or ill-will – the danger of a hare with its belly exposed. There is also a duality in the invitation: the audience is drawn in just as surely as the song’s object to the immersive world conjured by the album.
‘This Wild Willing’ was conceived in Paris and recorded at the French Black Box studios with producer David Odlum and a core group of musicians that includes classically-trained Iranian musicians the Khoshravesh brothers, long-time Hansard associates Joe Doyle (bass) and ROMY (piano, vocals, string arrangements), and Dublin electronic musicians Deasy and Dunk Murphy (Sunken Foal). The album is grounded in a spirit of openness to invention and experimentation.
Pre-Order This Wild Willing (out April 12th via Anti- Records)
Glen Hansard European Tour Dates
7th March – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Koninklijk Theater Carré SOLD OUT
8th March – Hamburg, Germany – Elbphilharmonie Hamburg SOLD OUT
9th April – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street
10th April – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street
12th April – Derry, United Kingdom – St. Columb’s Hall
13th April – Derry, United Kingdom – St. Columb’s Hall SOLD OUT
15th April – London, United Kingdom – Barbican Centre
16th April – London, United Kingdom – Barbican Centre
27th April – Paris, France – Casino de Paris
29th April – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Koninklijk Theater Carré
30th April – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Koninklijk Theater Carré
2nd May – Copenhagen, Denmark – Amager Bio / BETA
4th May – Stockholm, Sweden – Skandiascenen
6th May – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
8th May – Cologne, Germany – Kőlner Philharmonie
9th May – Frankfurt Am Main, Germany – Alte Oper
11th May – Brno-žabovřesky, Czech Republic – 5th Anniversary of SONO Centrum
13th May – Warszawa, Poland – Palladium
14th May – Warszawa, Poland – Palladium
16th May – Berlin, Germany – Admiralspalast
17th May – Berlin, Germany – Admiralspalast
19th May – Berlin, Germany – Admiralspalast
‘This Wild Willing’ Track Listing:
1. I’ll Be You, Be Me
2. Don’t Settle
3. Fools Game
4. Race To The Bottom
5. The Closing Door
6. Brother’s Keeper
7. Mary
8. Threading Water
9. Weight of the World
10. Who’s Gonna Be Your Baby Now
11. Good Life Of Song
12. Leave A Light
Photo Credit Stephan Vanfleteren