Portrait

Yann Tiersen has announced a new album, Portrait, a collection of 25 newly recorded tracks from throughout his career that includes 3 new songs, out on Mute. The album will be released on heavyweight triple vinyl, double CD, cassette and digitally. Both the clear and black vinyl editions of Portrait include an exclusive 7" with brand new alternative harpsichord versions of 'Comptine d'Un Autre Été (L'Après-Midi)' and 'The Waltz of the Monsters', unavailable elsewhere.

Recorded with musicians together live in The Eskal studio to 24 track 2 inch tape, mixed to stereo ¼ inch tape then mastered from tape to vinyl, the album is a fully analogue approach for Tiersen. "Limiting our ability to digitally manipulate, overdub or make changes after deciding a creative path gave an energy and beautiful tension to the recording process which I'd found was being lost with the limitless possibilities of digital recording. Not translating sounds into 1 and 0 keeps music in the real world." The result is a vital album that fizzes with the excitement and energy found at a live concert but packed into a studio album. Featuring collaborations with John Grant, Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals, Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O, and Blonde Redhead, the album was recorded with touring collaborators Emilie Tiersen, Ólavur Jákupsson and Jens L Thomsen at The Eskal, the new analogue studio complex Tiersen recently built on his home island of Ushant in Brittany.