Glen & Marketa on Tiny Desk Concert NPR...such a fun duo to hear and Glen's chatter is funny and sweet...a good guy and a sweet lady. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crS5ti-Py7Q
The Swell Season is a folk rock duo formed by Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová. "The Swell Season" name is derived from Hansard's favourite novel by Josef Škvorecký from 1975 bearing the same title. Their debut album goes by the same name.
Since their rise to prominence after starring in the 2007 film Once, they increasingly referred to themselves as "The Swell Season" in promotion of their performances until it became the formal name of their collaboration in 2008. (Notably, they still used their separate names when they contributed their cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" to the 2007 soundtrack of I'm Not There.)
From 2007 through 2010, a documentary film was made about Irglova and Hansard called The Swell Season. The movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2011 to positive reviews.
The self-titled first album came about after Glen and Marketa were approached by the Czech film director Jan H#345;ebejk while touring in the Czech Republic, and were asked by him to record songs for his upcoming film Beauty in Trouble. It was the first album that Hansard, the singer for The Frames, had released independent of his band.
Some of the tracks on this album have appeared on other recordings - the track "Falling Slowly" and "When Your Mind's Made Up" on The Frames' album The Cost, and "Falling Slowly", "When Your Mind's Made Up", "Lies" and "Leave" on the Once soundtrack.
Glen and Marketa parodied their roles from Once in The Simpsons episode, In the Name of the Grandfather.
A follow up album, Strict Joy, was released on October 27, 2009 in the United States. Three singles from the album have been released: "In These Arms," "Low Rising," and "Feeling the Pull."
Spin Magazine's review of Strict Joy gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. "If Glen Hansard's and Markéta Irglová's roles in the hit Irish indie film Once unintentionally wove the tale of their real-life falling in love, their second album as the Swell Season weaves the story of their falling out of it." SPIN.com
In August 2010, The Swell Season covered Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy" for The AV Club.
At an August 19, 2010 concert at the Mountain Winery, a concert attendee leapt to his death from the roof of the venue onto the stage. The death was deemed a suicide. The band provided and paid for group counseling sessions for concert attendees who witnessed the event.
In a recent interview in the Huffington Post with Irglova, she revealed that the Swell Season will probably release a third album when Hansard finishes with other commitments.
Once is a 2006 Irish musical film written and directed by John Carney. Set in Dublin, Ireland, the naturalistic drama stars musicians Glen Hansard (of the Irish folk rock band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as musicians. Collaborators prior to making the film, Hansard and Irglová composed and performed all of the original songs in the movie.
Shot for only €130,000 (US$160,000),[2] the film was successful,[3] earning substantial per-screen box office averages in the United States.[4] It received enthusiastic reviews[5][6] and awards such as the 2007 Independent Spirit Award for best foreign film. Hansard and Irglová's song "Falling Slowly" won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song and the soundtrack as a whole also received a Grammy Award nomination.
Once spent years in development with the Irish Film Board. It was during a period where the film board had no chief executive (for about 6 months) that the film was given the go-ahead by a lower level executive on the proviso that the producers could make it on a budget of approximately €150,000 and not the initial higher budget.
A thirty-something Dublin busker ("Guy", played by Glen Hansard) sings and plays guitar on Grafton Street, a Dublin shopping district. He struggles with the trials of performing on the street. Lured by his music, an unnamed young Czech immigrant flower seller ("Girl", played by Markéta Irglová) talks to him about his songs. Delighted to learn that he also repairs vacuum cleaners, she insists that he fix her broken Hoover.
She brings her Hoover by, and soon tells him that she is a musician, too. At a music store where she regularly plays piano, he teaches her one of his songs ("Falling Slowly"); they sing and play together. He invites her and her ailing vacuum back to his father's shop, and on the bus home musically answers her question as to what his songs are about: a long-time girlfriend who cheated on him, then left ("Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy")....
now..watch the great film for more...no spoilers here.
"Falling Slowly" won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song.[19] Hansard had jokingly stated that when they finished recording the song he announced, "and the Oscar for best song goes to..."[citation needed]. The nomination's eligibility for the Oscar was initially questioned,[20] as versions of the song had been released on The Cost and The Swell Season albums, but this was resolved before the voting for the award took place. The AMPAS music committee satisfied themselves that the song had indeed been written for the film and determined that, in the course of the film's protracted production, the composers had "played the song in some venues that were deemed inconsequential enough to not change the song’s eligibility".
The soundtrack was nominated for two 2008 Grammy Awards, under Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media and, for "Falling Slowly", Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.[22] It won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music.,[23] and it was ranked at number two on the Entertainment Weekly 25 New Classic Soundtrack Albums list (1983–2008).
Critical reaction
Once was met with extremely high positive reviews from critics. Upon its March 2007 release in Ireland, RTÉ's Caroline Hennessy gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and termed it "an unexpected treasure". About the acting, this Irish reviewer commented, "Once has wonderfully natural performances from the two leads. Although musicians first and actors second, they acquit themselves well in both areas. Irglová, a largely unknown quantity alongside the well-known and either loved or loathed Hansard, is luminous."[35] Michael Dwyer of The Irish Times gave the film the same rating, calling it "irresistibly appealing" and noting that "Carney makes the point - without ever labouring it - that his protagonists are living in a changing city where the economic boom has passed them by. His keen eye for authentic locations is ... evident".[30]
In May, Ebert & Roeper, both Richard Roeper and guest critic Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave enthusiastic reviews. Phillips called it, "the most charming thing I've seen all year", "the Brief Encounter for the 21st century", his favorite music film since 1984's Stop Making Sense and said, "It may well be the best music film of our generation". Roeper referred to the film's recording studio scene as "more inspirational and uplifting than almost any number of Dreamgirls or Chicago or any of those multi-zillion dollar musical showstopping films. In its own way, it will blow you away."[36] Once won very high marks from U.S. critics; it is rated 97% "fresh" by the film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes[5] and scored a grade of 88 ("universal acclaim") according to Metacritic.[6]
In late 2007, Amy Simmons of Time Out London wrote, "Carney’s highly charged, urban mise-en-scčne with its blinking street lamps, vacant shops and dishevelled bed-sits provides ample poetic backdrop for the film’s lengthy tracking shots, epitomised in a sequence where the Girl walks to the corner shop in pyjamas and slippers while listening to one of the Guy’s songs on her personal stereo. With outstanding performances from Hansard and new-comer Irglová, Carney has created a sublime, visual album of unassuming and self-assured eloquence."[37] The Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu said, "Not since Before Sunset has a romantic film managed to be as touching, funny or as hard to forget as Once. Like Before Sunset, it never outstays its welcome, climaxing on a note of rare charm and unexpectedness."[38]
The film appeared on many North American critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.
