Album review

Yann Tiersen - L'absente

He helped Audrey Tautou steal your heart in Amélie, and Tiersen, like that film, evokes the passing of French iconographies (Pernod, madeleines, poujadisme) and the culture's quiet assimilation of change, with or without accordions. The slyly sentimental, Nyman-leaning postmodernism of "A Quai" and "Bagatelle" absorbs genres from Rai to post-rock but remains uniquely French. Zazou and Eno, watch your arses.

Rating: 4 / 10


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I would have bought the issue of Melody Maker in which I first read about Bruce Springsteen on my way into the art school in Newport, where in March 1973 I was in my last term, only a few months away from moving to London and not long after that fetching up on MM as a junior reporter/feature...