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Music Picks

Listen to This!

Post-St. Patrick's Day Irish indie music: The Frames' gentle melancholic anger.

Thomas Rasmussen 22 Mar 2007TheTyee.ca

Thomas Boie Rasmussen is a Vancouver writer and broadcaster who writes the Across the Woods blog.
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Go to extremes and you'll find a kind of balance.

Glen Hansard's new film, Once, parallels my life. Sort of.

The Sundance-screened tale follows an Irish musician who falls in love with a Czech woman. Although I am neither Irish nor a musician, I did share a three-month dalliance with a Czech belly dancer while I was studying there a couple of years ago.

Aside from acting, Hansard fronts the Irish rock band, The Frames. Since I saw them play to a sold-out crowd, their album Burn The Maps (which went platinum) has become affixed to my Czech romance, Pilsner Urquell and the communist-era dormitory that I called home.

Like the narrow cobbled streets of Prague, The Frames' music is dark and haunting. With lyrics like:

Maybe I should just move along
But you know I'd draw blood if that's what you want
You found someone who makes you laugh
Who'd stick around but that's not what you want

It's clear that the lyrical content is fueled by heartache and lost love. The songs are sorrowful, but due to Hansard's delivery they're full of fervor and passion. And his lyrics are accompanied by guitars that slowly roar into crescendos and are interlaced by sweeping violin lines.

Listen to "Sad Songs" from their new album, The Cost, released Feb. 20, and "Dream Awake" from Burn the Maps. And see them live at The Red Room in Vancouver on April 12. The banter between songs should be worth the ticket price alone.

Footnote: Hansard played the role of Outspan Foster in the celebrated Irish film, The Commitments, the story of an unlikely Dublin soul band.

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