CD Reviews

Once

Music from the Motion Picture | Canvasback/Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax

By MIKAEL WOOD | May 29, 2007

3.5 Stars

This soundtrack to John Carney’s scrappy digital-video musical works for the same reason that the latest album by Once star Glen Hansard’s band the Frames worked: it conveys profound emotions with an informality that allows you to feel them without getting bogged down in the musicians’ need for you to feel them. On The Cost, the Frames achieved that goal by recording live in the studio; here, Hansard and co-star (and duet partner) Markéta Irglová adopt a similar approach, stripping down their songs to street-corner essentials: guitar, vocals, the occasional splash of Old World strings. Like the film, the resulting collection — which includes new renditions of Frames songs, as well as tunes originally found on The Swell Season, Hansard’s 2006 side-project CD — captures the thrilling immediacy of a new relationship, the way that experience can cause feelings to tumble forth faster than they can be considered or described. There’s a wonderfully unfinished quality to these recordings that gives the music an uncommon potency. If you’re not sure where to start digging into the Frames’ expansive catalogue, start here.

Related: Portland scene report: October 10, 2008, Once from the heart, The girls of summer, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard, John Carney

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"Once from the heart: The musical takes to the streets." By Peter Keough.

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