Breton-born artist Yann Tiersen has been involved in music for most of his life. He started learning piano at the age of four, took up violin at the age of six and received classical training at musical academies in Rennes, Nantes and Boulogne. Then, at the age of 13, he chose to alter his destiny, breaking his violin into pieces, buying a guitar and forming a rock band. When his band broke up a few years later, he bought a cheap mixing desk, an eight-track reel to reel, and started recording music solo with a synth, sampler and drum machine, poring over the grooves of old records on the hunt for loops and orchestral strings to plunder.

1995’s La Valse Des Monstres, inspired by Tod Browning’s Freaks and Yukio Mishima’s The Damask Drum, was followed six months later by Rue Des Cascades, a collection of short pieces recorded with toy piano, harpsichord, violin, accordion and mandolin. Six years later, the record would find a much larger audience when several tracks, along with music from Le Phare, would be used on the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film Amelie (2001). 1998’s Le Phare (The Light House) was recorded in self-imposed seclusion on the isle of Ushant (located 30 kilometres off the west coast of Brittany in the Celtic Sea), the island that Tiersen now calls home.

In 2010 he signed to Mute and released the first of a series of album with more of a band presentation. Dust Lane introduced synthesisers to his recordings, Skyline (2011) followed, and 2016 saw Tiersen’s first solo piano release, EUSA, a move into more minimalist contemporary sounds. 2021’s Kerber followed, a beautifully textured, highly immersive and thoughtfully constructed electronic world, that was soon followed by 11 5 18 2 5 18, an unexpected release, born from experimentation in the studio. A box set collated these connected works with remixes and reworkings in 2023, coinciding with a unique tour, travelling on his sailboat, Ninnog to a series of performances in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England and the Faroe Islands.

A tour in early 2024 will continue some of the themes of the Ninnog tour. With focus on making personal connections, and finding the people and places that would be impossible within the constraints of a usual tour, Tiersen will journey across Europe solo in his campervan avoiding motorways, stopping to play in rural towns and villages.