Auseinandersetzung (Controversy), by Karl-Henning Seemann

Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus (see verse), hence, "to turn against."

The most contentious subjects, topics or areas are politics, religion and sex.^[1][2][3] Other areas of controversy include history and philosophy. Other minor areas of controversy may include economics, science, finances, organisation, age, gender, and race. Controversy in matters of theology has traditionally been particularly heated, giving rise to the phrase odium theologicum. Controversial issues are held as potentially divisive in a given society, because they can lead to tension and ill will, as a result they are often taboo to be discussed in the light of company in many cultures.

Legal controversy[link]

In the theory of law, a controversy differs from a legal case; while legal cases include all suits, criminal as well as civil, a controversy is a purely civil proceeding.

For example, the Case or Controversy Clause of Article Three of the United States Constitution (Section 2, Clause 1) states that "the judicial Power shall extend ... to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party". This clause has been deemed to impose a requirement that United States federal courts are not permitted to hear cases that do not pose an actual controversy—that is, an actual dispute between adverse parties which is capable of being resolved by the [court]. In addition to setting out the scope of the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, it also prohibits courts from issuing advisory opinions, or from hearing cases that are either unripe, meaning that the controversy has not arisen yet, or moot, meaning that the controversy has already been resolved.

Benford's law of controversy[link]

Benford's law of controversy, as expressed by science-fiction author Gregory Benford in 1980, states: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real (true) information available.^[4][5] In other words, the fewer facts are known to and agreed on by the participants, the more controversy there is, and the more is known the less controversy there is. Thus, for example, controversies in physics are limited to subject-areas where experiments cannot be carried out yet, whereas Benford's Law implies that controversy is inherent to politics, where communities must frequently decide on courses of action based on insufficient information.

Psychological bases of controversy[link]

Controversies are frequently thought to be a result of a lack of confidence fu the part of the disputants - as in Benford's Law of Controversy. For example, in the political controversy over anthropogenic climate change that is prevalent in the United States - it has been thought that those who are opposed to the scientific consensus did so because of a lack of evidence.^[6][7] A study of 1540 US adults^[8] found instead that levels of scientific literacy were correlated with the strength of opinion on climate change, but not on which side of the debate that they stood.

The puzzling phenomenon of two individuals being exposed to the same evidence and being able to reach different conclusions, has been frequently explained (particularly by Daniel Kahneman) by reference to a 'bounded rationality' - that is most judgments are made by fast acting heuristics (system 1)^[9][10] that work well in every day situations, but are not amenable to decision making about complex subjects such as climate change. Anchoring has been particularly identified as relevant in climate change controversies ^[11] as individuals are found to be more positively inclined to believe in climate change if the outside temperature is higher, if they have been primed to think about heat, and if they are primed with higher temperatures when thinking about the future temperature increases from climate change.

In other controversies - such as that around the HPV vaccine, the same evidence seemed to license inference to radically different conclusions.^[12] Kahan et al.^[13] explained this by the cognitive biases of Biased Assimilation^[14] and a Credibility Heuristic.^[15]

Similar effects on reasoning are also seen in non-scientific controversies, for example in the gun control debate in the United States.^[16] As with other controversies, it has been suggested that exposure to empirical facts would be sufficient to resolve the gun control debate once and for all.^[17][18] In computer simulations of cultural communities, beliefs were found to polarize within isolated sub-groups, based on the mistaken belief of the community's unhindered access to ground truth.^[16] Such confidence in the group to find the ground truth is explicable through the success of wisdom of the crowd based inferences,^[19] however, if there is no access to the ground truth, as there was not in this model, the method will fail.

Bayesian decision theory allows these failures of rationality to be described as part of a statistically optimized system for decision making. Experiments and computational models in Multimodal integration have shown that sensory input from different senses is integrated in a statistically optimal way,^[20] in addition, it appears that the kind of inferences used to infer single sources for multiple sensory inputs uses a Bayesian inference about the causal origin of the sensory stimuli.^[21] As such, it appears neurobiologically plausible that the brain implements decision-making procedures that are close to optimal for Bayesian inference.

Brocas and Carrillo propose a model to make decisions based on noisy sensory inputs,^[22] beliefs about the state of the world are modified by Bayesian updating, and then decisions are made based on beliefs passing a threshold. They show that this model, when optimized for single-step decision making, produces Belief Anchoring and Polarization of opinions - exactly as described in the global warming controversy context - in spite of identical evidence presented, the pre-existing beliefs (or evidence presented first) has an overwhelming effect on the beliefs formed. In addition, the preferences of the agent (the particular rewards that they value) also cause the beliefs formed to change - this explains the Biased Assimilation (also known as Confirmation Bias) shown above. This model allows the production of controversy to be seen as a consequence of a decision maker optimized for single-step decision making, rather than as a result of limited reasoning in the Bounded rationality of Kahneman.

See also[link]

• ProCon.org
• Bayesian Inference
• Multimodal integration
• Wisdom of the crowd
• Dental amalgam controversy
• Sodium controversy
• Physiological controversy
• Kanye West

References[link]

Look up controversy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Controversy

Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy (1992).
Background information
Birth name	Françoise Madeleine Hardy
Born	(1944-01-17) 17 January 1944 (age 68)
Origin	Paris, France
Occupations	Actress/Singer
Years active	1961–present
Associated acts	Jacques Dutronc
Website	francoise-hardy.com
Notable instruments
Voice, Guitar

Françoise Madeleine Hardy (pronounced [fʁɑ̃.swaːz aʁ.di]; born 17 January 1944) is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style.^[1][2] She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.

Biography[link]

Hardy grew up in the 9th arrondissement of Paris with her younger sister Michèle. Her parents lived apart when she was young and her father contributed little financially to the family and had little to do with his daughters. He was, however, persuaded by the girls' mother to buy Françoise a guitar for her birthday as a reward for passing her baccalauréat.^[3] Her early musical influences were the French chanson stars Charles Trenet and Cora Vaucaire^[4] as well as Anglophone singers Paul Anka, the Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, Connie Francis and Marty Wilde whom she heard on the English-language radio station, Radio Luxembourg.^[3] After a year at the Sorbonne she answered a newspaper advertisement looking for young singers. Hardy signed her first contract with the record label Vogue in November 1961. In April 1962, shortly after she left university, her first record "Oh Oh Chéri" appeared, written by Johnny Hallyday's writing duo. Her own flip side of the record, "Tous les garçons et les filles" became a success, riding the wave of Yé-yé music in France. It sold over a million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[5] The track peaked at #36 in the UK Singles Chart in 1964.^[6] She first appeared on television in 1962 during an interlude in a programme reporting the results of a presidential referendum.

Hardy sings in French, English, Italian, Spanish and German, and has one interpretation in Portuguese. In 1963 she came fifth for Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest with "L'amour s'en va". In 1963, she was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros.

In 1981, she married her long-time companion Jacques Dutronc, who is the father of her son, Thomas Dutronc, born in 1973. Hardy lives near Paris and Dutronc in Monticello, Corsica, although they remain a couple.^{[citation needed]}

She allegedly had an affair with Dr Christiaan Barnard, the South African heart surgeon.^[7]

In 1994, she collaborated with the British pop group Blur for their "La Comedie" version of "To The End". In May 2000, she made a comeback with the album Clair Obscur on which her son played guitar and her husband sang the duet "Puisque Vous Partez En Voyage". Iggy Pop and Étienne Daho also took part. She has also recorded a duet with Perry Blake who wrote two songs for her award winning Tant de belles choses album.

On shyness and fame[link]

Because of her difficult upbringing Hardy became painfully shy — a trait which is still part of her character today.^[3] When asked about her shyness in an interview with John Andrew, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011 she said:

"I thought at first my parents were divorced — at that time it was not a good thing, it was a kind of shame. My father didn't help much financially my mother, and all the other girls, little girls, were dressed differently than I was — their parents had more money...I didn’t enjoy at all everything, the trappings, when all of a sudden you become very famous... [on being taken up by the fashion houses] it was work, things I had to do, a chore - I didn't enjoy it at all...It is quite impossible to stand — to be admired too much — it is not a normal situation...I don't like that at all...I am not comfortable with my professional life really, so the word 'icon'- it's as though you were talking about someone else, it's not me really...I feel happy when I'm on my bed, in my room with a good book."^[3]

Cultural references[link]

Films[link]

Hardy makes a cameo appearance in a scene from Jean-Luc Godard's film Masculin, féminin.^[8] She played a minor role in the 1965 film What's New Pussycat? and also acted in the 1966 film Grand Prix. In a scene from director John G. Avildsen's film Save the Tiger (1973), Jack Lemmon's character Harry Stoner makes a reference to Hardy during a melancholy telephone call to his wife. Her song "Tous les garçons et les filles" played during the British film Metroland and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers. Her song "L'Amitié" played during the end credits of Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares) which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003. Her recording of the song "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux", composed by Louis Aragon is played in the Norwegian film Tatt av Kvinnen.^[9]

Fashion and popular song[link]

Hardy is mentioned in a poem by Bob Dylan "Some other kinds of songs" which he wrote on the cover of his album Another Side of Bob Dylan, released in 1964.^[10] Hardy's style influences Nicolas Ghesquière, head of the couture house, Balenciaga.^[11]

Hardy's song "Ce Petit Coeur", was featured in the Gilmore Girls episode "French Twist".

Her song "Ma Jeunesse Fout Le Camp" was also played in the television series La Femme Nikita's third season episode "Beyond the Pale" when Nikita pulls out an old record and plays the song.

In the award-winning Greek film Attenberg, her song "Tous les garçons et les filles" is played and sung by the two main characters in a lament of adolescent longing and loneliness.

Her song "Le Temps De L'Amour" appeared in the official trailer of "Moonrise Kingdom" (2012) starring Edward Norton and Bill Murray.

Selected songs[link]

• "Tous les garçons et les filles" (1962) – UK #36^[6]
• "J'suis d'accord" (1962)
• "Le Temps de l'amour" (1962)
• "Le Premier Bonheur du jour" (1963)
• "L'Amour s'en va" (1963)
• "Only friends / Ton meilleur ami" (1964)
• "Mon amie la rose" (1964)
• "Et même" (1964) – UK #31^[6]
• "All Over the World" ("Dans le monde entier") (1965) – UK #16^[6]
• "L'Amitié" (1965)
• "La Maison où j'ai grandi" (1966)
• "Voilà" (1967)
• "Comment te dire adieu?" (1968, lyrics by Serge Gainsbourg)
• "Fleur de lune" (1970)
• "Message personnel" (1973, lyrics by Michel Berger)
• "J'écoute de la musique saoûle" (1978)

Selected discography[link]

• Tous les garçons et les filles (1962); re-released as The Yeh-Yeh Girl from Paris! (1965)
• Le Premier Bonheur du jour (1963)
• Françoise Hardy canta per voi in italiano (1963)
• Mon amie la rose (1964)
• L'Amitié (1965)
• Françoise in Germany (1965)
• Françoise Hardy in English (1966)
• La Maison où j'ai grandi (1966)
• Ma jeunesse fout le camp... (1967)
• Comment te dire adieu? (1968)
• Françoise Hardy en Anglais (1969)
• Françoise (1970)
• Soleil (1970)
• One-Nine-Seven-Zero (1970)
• Träume (1970)
• La Question (1971)
• Et si je m'en vais avant toi (1972)
• If You Listen (1972)
• Message Personnel (1973)
• Entr'acte (1974)
• Star (1977)
• J'écoute de la musique saoûle (1978)
• Gin Tonic (1980)
• À Suivre (1981)
• Quelqu'un qui s'en va (1982)
• Décalages (1988)
• Le Danger (1996)
• Clair Obscur (2000)
• Tant de belles choses (2004)
• (Parenthèses...) (2006)
• La Pluie sans parapluie (2010)

Soundtracks[link]

• "L'Amitié", in The Barbarian Invasions, Denys Arcand (2003)
• "Des ronds dans l'eau", in Remember Me, My Love, Gabriele Muccino (2003)
• "Tous les garçons et les filles", in The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci (2003)
• "Tous les garçons et les filles", "Le Premier Bonheur du jour", in The Statement, Norman Jewison (2003)
• "All Over The World", in The Boat That Rocked, Richard Curtis (2009)

Selected filmography[link]

• Château en suède (1963)
• What's New Pussycat? (1965, uncredited appearance in final scene)
• Une Balle au cœur (1965)
• Grand Prix (1966)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (French)
• Françoise Hardy at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography of Françoise Hardy, from Radio France Internationale

Yann Tiersen
Background information
Birth name	Yann Pierre Tiersen
Born	(1970-06-23) 23 June 1970 (age 42)
Origin	Brest, Brittany, France
Genres	Minimalist, avant-garde
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Piano, violin, accordion, guitar, toy piano, voice, and various others
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Sine Terra Firma, Ici, d'ailleurs..., EMI, Virgin, Mute, ANTI-
Associated acts	Claire Pichet, Dominique A, Françoiz Breut, Natacha Régnier, Shannon Wright
Website	link

Yann Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a musician from France.^[1][2] His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks with a distinctive sound that is always involved. It can be recognized by its use of a large variety of instruments; primarily the guitar, synthesizer or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, accordion and typewriter.

Tiersen is often mistaken as a composer of soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't have a classical background",^[3] but his real focus is on touring and studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film. His most famous soundtrack for the film Amélie was primarily made up of tracks taken from his first two studio albums.^[4]

Biography and career[link]

The early years: 1970–1992[link]

Yann Tiersen was born in Brest in the Finistère département in Brittany in northwestern France, in 1970, into a family of Belgian and Norwegian origins.^[5] He started learning piano at the age of four, violin at the age of six, and received classical training at several musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne.^[6] In the early 1980s when he was a teenager he was influenced by the punk subculture, and bands like The Stooges and Joy Division.^[7] In 1983, at the age of 13, he broke his violin, bought an electric guitar, and formed a rock band. Tiersen was now living in Rennes, and this turned out to be the perfect place for his musical career. In fact, Rennes is home to the three-day music festival Rencontres Trans Musicales, held annually in December, giving him the opportunity to see acts like Nirvana, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Television, and Suicide. A few years later, when his band broke up, Tiersen bought a cheap mixing desk, an 8-track reel-to-reel audio tape recording, and started recording music solo with a synthesizer, a sampler, and a drum machine.^[8]

Debut and national acclaim: 1993–2000[link]

Before releasing film scores under his own name, Tiersen recorded background music for a number of plays and short films. In the summer of 1993, Tiersen stayed in his apartment, recording music alone with an electric guitar, a violin, and an accordion, guided by his vision of “a musical anarchy”. By the end of that summer, Tiersen had recorded over forty tracks, which would form most of his first two albums. Tiersen's debut album, La Valse des monstres, limited to 1,000 copies only, was released in June 1995 by independent record label Sine Terra Firma, and then it was reissued by Nancy-based record label Ici d'ailleurs in 1998 as the second album of its catalogue. The 17-track album was inspired by and written for the theatrical adaptations of Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic Freaks, and Yukio Mishima's 1955 version of Noh play The Damask Drum. One year later, in April 1996, he released Rue des cascades, a collection of short pieces recorded with toy piano, harpsichord, violin, accordion, and mandolin. The title track, sung by French soloist singer Claire Pichet, will be used about one year later for the Palme d'Or nominated French drama film The Dreamlife of Angels,^[9] and several tracks will find a much larger audience five years later when they were featured on the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amélie.^[8] Tiersen played almost all the instruments both in the studio and in concert, and this gave him a theatrical appeal as a one-man show, which allowed him to perform, among others, at the 1996 edition of the Avignon Festival, the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest.^[10]

Tiersen rose to domestic fame upon the release of his third studio album, Le Phare (English: The Light House) in 1998. The album was recorded in a self-imposed seclusion on the isle of Ushant (Breton: Enez Eusa, French: Ouessant) at the south-western end of the English Channel which marks the north-westernmost point of metropolitan France, where Tiersen spent two months living in a rented house. At night, he watched the Phare du Creach (English: Kreac'h or Créac'h lighthouse), one of the most powerful lighthouse in the world, and was fascinated by the stunning scenery repeated every night. Le Phare, which featured Claire Pichet, French singer and songwriter Dominique A, and French drummer and percussionist Sacha Toorop, went on to sell over 160,000 copies, confirming Tiersen's status as one of the most pioneering and original artists of his generation and commencing a run of successful albums.^[8] Three songs from this album, "La Dispute", "La Noyee", and "Sur le fil" were used later for the soundtrack of Amélie, while "L'Homme aux bras ballants", written and composed by Dominique A, was also the soundtrack to Laurent Gorgiard's 1997 short animation film by the same name. Its single, "Monochrome", sung by Dominique A, was a radio hit and propelled the album. Le Phare was his first album to chart climbing to number 50 in the French Albums Chart.^[11]

In that period Tiersen provided a new arrangement and played strings, vibraphone, bell, mandolin, electric guitar, and bass guitar for the song "À ton étoile" by French rock band Noir Désir on their 1998 remix album One Trip/One Noise,^[12] recorded background music for the award-winning and multi-nominated film The Dreamlife of Angels (French: La Vie rêvée des anges),^[9][13] for André Téchiné's Alice et Martin, released in 1998, and Christine Carrière's Qui plume la lune?, released in 1999, and also recorded Bästard ~ Yann Tiersen, a 3-track extended play released in 1998 in collaboration with French electronic rock band Bästard, and his first live album, Black Session: Yann Tiersen. The live album was recorded on 2 December 1998 as the opening act of the Rencontres Trans Musicales in the Salle Serreau at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes, for the C'est Lenoir show broadcasted on the French public radio station France Inter. The album, which features Northern Irish singer, songwriter, and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy Neil Hannon, singer and songwriter Bertrand Cantat of Noir Désir, singer and illustrator Françoiz Breut, anglophone French rock band The Married Monk (Christian Quermalet, Philippe Lebruman, Etienne Jaumet, Nicolas Courret), French folk rock group Têtes Raides (Christian Olivier, Grègoire Simon, Pascal Olivier, Anne-Gaëlle Bisquay, Serge Bégout, Jean-Luc Millot, and Edith Bégou), the string quartet Quatuor à cordes, guitarist and composer Olivier Mellano, and author Mathieu Boogaerts, as well as his usual collaborators and friends, Claire Pichet and Dominique A, was recorded by France International, mastered by Radio France, and released in CD format one year later on 2 November 1999.^[14]

In 1999, Tiersen with The Married Monk, Claire Pichet, and Olivier Mellano, released his first collaboration album, Tout est calme. The 26 minutes, 10 tracks mini album peaked at number 45 on the French Albums Chart.^[11][15] The album produced one single, "Les Grandes marées", and Tiersen also featured on The Divine Comedy's single "Gin Soaked Boy" released on that same year, on three tracks for Françoiz Breut's second studio album Vingt à Trente Mille Jours (English: Twenty to Thirty Thousand Days), and on Têtes Raides' Gratte-poil, both released in 2000.

[edit] Amélie and global recognition: 2001–2009

Tiersen remained relatively unknown outside France until the release of his score for the acclaimed film Amélie (Original French title: Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, English: The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain) in 2001. French film director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had something else in mind for the film score, but one day one of his production assistants put on a CD of Tiersen, and the director found it absolutely superb. Jeunet bought all of Tiersen's albums, and then contacted him to see if the Breton composer was interested in writing the film score for Amélie. In two weeks, Tiersen composed nineteen pieces for the film and also allowed the production to take anything they wanted from his other records.^[16] Amélie received great critical acclaim and was a box-office success. The film went on to win the Best Film award at the European Film Awards, four César Awards, including Best Film and Best Director, two BAFTA Awards, including Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. The soundtrack was a mixture of both new and previously released material, and Tiersen was also the recipient of the César Award for Best Music Written for a Film, and of the World Soundtrack Academy award. The soundtrack album charted in many countries, including the number one position on the French Albums Chart.^[17][2]

While he was writing the film score for Amélie Tiersen was also preparing his fifth studio album L'Absente.^[2] The album was characterized by several contributions including 35-member Ensemble Orchestral Synaxis conducted by Guillaume Bourgogne, viola player Bertrand Lambert, violinists Yann Bisquay and Sophie Naboulay, Natacha Régnier, and saxophonist Grégoire Simon, and long-time collaborators Dominique A, Christine Ott, Lisa Germano, Neil Hannon, Têtes Raides, Christian Quermalet, Marc Sens, and Sacha Toorop. The album, which was released on 5 June 2001 through EMI France, was preceded by two promotional singles for "A quai" and "Bagatelle" respectively. Tiersen provided strings and vibraphone to two tracks, "Roma Amor" and "Holidays", featured on The Married Monk's compilation album of the same name.

At this time he was married to Belgian actress Natacha Régnier, co-star of The Dreamlife of Angels. Régnier become a singer and Tiersen wrote three songs for her including his arrangement of Georges Brassens' "Le Parapluie", a song featured on the tribute album Les Oiseaux de passage, released in 2001. That same year they went on tour in France and abroad. They have a daughter, Lise, born in 2002, but they have since been divorced.^[18] In this period, Tiersen also took his music out around the world, playing shows with a full orchestra and an amplified string quartet.^[8] On 15, 16, and 17 February 2002, Tiersen with many of the collaborators who participated in the recording sessions for L'Absente plus Claire Pichet, violinists Nicholas Stevens and Renaud Lhoest, bassist Jean-François Assy, viola player Olivier Tilkin, and uilleann pipes, bagpipes, and low whistle player Ronan Le Bars, performed live at the Cité de la Musique (English: City of Music) in Paris. Part of these three concerts went on to form Tiersen's second live album C'était ici (English: It Was Here), which was released through EMI France on 30 September 2002.^[19]

Tiersen's skills as a composer of film scores were much in demand, and the soundtrack for Amélie was soon followed by the film score for Good Bye, Lenin!, a 2003 German tragicomedy film directed by Wolfgang Becker.^[8] The film was both a commercial and a critical success and won several awards including the César Award for Best Film from the European Union, Best Film at the European Film Awards, the German Film Awards for Outstanding Film, Best European Film at the Goya Awards, Best Foreign Language Film for the London Film Critics' Circle, and it was also listed in the Empire magazine 2010's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema"^[20] Tiersen was the recipient of the German Film Awards for Outstanding Music. On 15 November 2003, Tiersen with Stuart A. Staples, the lead singer of indie band Tindersticks, actress and singer Jane Birkin, singer and vocalist for Cocteau Twins Elizabeth Fraser, singer and songwriter Christophe Miossec, and Dominique A released 3 titres inédits au profit de la FIDH (English: 3 New Tracks for the Benefit of FIDH), a 3-track CD that was part of the On Aime, On Aide benefit collection for raising funds for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).^[21]

Tiersen's list of collaborators continues to grow album after album and in October 2004 released Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright, a collaboration album with American singer-songwriter Shannon Wright, was released in October 2004, and in the same year he is featured on The Divine Comedy's album Absent Friends. In 2005, Tiersen released his fifth studio album Les Retrouvailles. The album features several collaborators including the Orchestre National de Paris, singers Elizabeth Fraser, Jane Birkin, Stuart A. Staples, Dominique A, and Miossec, strings players Jean-François Assy, Frederic Dessus, Guillaume Fontanarosa, Bertrand Causse, Anne Causse Biragnet, Armelle Legoff, Frédéric Haffner, flute player Elliott, drummer Ludovic Morillon, and ondes Martenot player Christine Ott. Les Retrouvailles also includes a DVD short film entitled La Traversée, directed by Aurélie du Boys, which documents the making of the album in Ushant, and incorporates an animated video for the non-album track, "Le Train", and also live versions of a handful of songs. The album produced a single, "Kala", sung by Elizabeth Fraser, and Tiersen also played piano on Staples' solo debut album, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04. The subsequent world tour of 2006 replaced the multi-instrumental ensemble with electric guitars and an ondes Martenot, and produced his third live album, On Tour, which was released together with a DVD, directed by Aurélie du Boys, about the tour, in November 2006. In 2006, he also released two singles, "La Mancha" and "La Rade", and he was featured on The Endless Rise of the Sun, third studio album by electronic group Smooth, Raides à la ville extended play by Katel, and 13m² by David Delabrosse.

2008 saw his return after a five years absence as a composer of film scores when he provided the background music for Tabarly, a Pierre Marcel's documentary film about the French sailor, two-time champion of the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, and father of French yachting Éric Tabarly. The documentary was released on June 2008 exactly ten years after his death. Éric Tabarly was lost at Irish Sea when struck by a gaff of his Pen Duick during heavy swell and knocked overboard from his yacht near Wales while on his way to the Fife Regatta in Scotland. His body was recovered five weeks later off the coast of Ireland by a French fishing trawler. The documentary, narrated by Tabarly himself, traces his sporting career until his last meal in Ushant.^[8] Before the end of the decade, Tiersen also contributed to Christine Ott's debut solo album Solitude Nomade, and to Miossec's seventh studio album Finistériens.

[edit] Dust Lane and Skyline: 2010–present

October 2010 saw the release of Tiersen’s sixth studio album titled Dust Lane. The album was two years in the making and was largely recorded in Ushant, France. Further parts were recorded in the Philippines. The album is preoccupied with mortality; during the recording sessions Tiersen lost his mother and a close friend. The recordings started out as simple song based tracks with Tiersen playing acoustic guitar, mandolin and bouzouki. New layers were added to the recordings creating a more complex sound. Then an array of vintage synthesisers and electric guitars were added to create further textures.^[22][23] The album was released by Mute Records in Europe and ANTI- Records in the US.^[24][25] The record was promoted in a tour beginning in October 2010, starting in New York. Dust Lane was preceded by the release of the vinyl EP PALESTINE and by the single for "Ashes". In 2010, Tiersen also contributed to the tribute album to cross-genre, experimental music group Coil The Dark Age of Love by This Immortal Coil, a one-off tribute formation, and to Li(f)e, the fourth solo studio album by hip-hop artist Sage Francis.

October 2011 saw the European release of his seventh studio album, Skyline. The nine-track album, a follow on from his Dark Lane, was once again recorded at Tiersen's home on the island of Ushant in the south-western end of the English Channel, with further parts recorded in Paris, San Francisco, Berlin, and Nashville. It was subsequently mixed by producer Ken Thomas in Leeds, and mastered by Ray Staff in London.^[8] The album produced the singles for "Monuments" and "I'm Gonna Live Anyhow". On 18 February 2012, Tiersen with Lionel Laquerriere, and Thomas Poli, presented his side project, Elektronische Staubband, at La Route du Rock music festival in Saint-Malo. It was about an hour of krautrock, electronic, and experimental music involving a dozen of synthesizers and analog keyboards with the first three pieces of the set list taken from Dust Lane and the remaining five from Skyline.^[26] Tiersen was also chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival on March 2012 in Minehead, England.^[27] Skyline was released in North America via ANTI- Records on 17 April 2012, and it was followed by the Skyline Tour with dates in the United States, Canada, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, France, Slovak Republic, Austria, Finland, and the United Kingdom.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Soundtracks[link]

Live albums[link]

Singles and EPs[link]

• Rue des cascades (7" vinyl EP) (1996)
• Black Session (EP promo) (1998)
• "La Vie rêvée des anges" (CD single) (1998)
• "Les Grandes marées" (1999)
• "Comptine d'un autre été : L'après-midi" (2001)
• "À quai" (CD single promo) (2001)
• "Bagatelle" (CD maxi promo) (2001)
• 3 titres inédits au profit de la FIDH (part of the On Aime, On Aide collection, composed to raise funds for the FIDH, sold exclusively at Fnac) (2003)
• "Kala" (2005)
• "La Mancha" (2006)
• "La Rade" (2006)
• PALESTINE (vinyl EP) (2010)
• "Ashes" (2010)
• "Monuments" (2011)
• "I'm Gonna Live Anyhow" (2011)

Collaborations[link]

Contributions[link]

• One Trip/One Noise (by Noir Désir) (1998)
  • "À ton étoile" (arrangements, strings, vibraphone, bell, mandolin, electric guitar and bass)
• "Gin Soaked Boy" (by The Divine Comedy) (1999)
• Vingt à Trente Mille Jours (by Françoiz Breut) (2000)
  • "Porsmouth" (vibraphone), "Vingt à trente mille jours" (vibraphone), "L'heure bleue" (violin), "Le verre pilé" (vibraphone); arrangements
• Gratte-poil (by Têtes Raides) (2000)
  • "Cabaret des nues" (violin)
• The Married Monk (by The Married Monk) (2001)
  • "Roma Amor" (strings, vibraphone), "Holidays" (strings) and "Cyro's Request" (vibraphone)
• Les oiseaux de passage (tribute to Georges Brassens) (2001)
  • cover of "Le parapluie" with Natacha Régnier
• Absent Friends (by The Divine Comedy) (2004)
  • "Sticks & Stones" (accordion); "Anthem for Bored Youth" (accordion), a track appearing only on the French limited edition
• Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04 (by Stuart A. Staples) (2005)
  • "She Don't Have to Be Good to Me" (piano)
• The Endless Rise of the Sun (by Smooth) (2006)
  • "The Endless Rise of the Sun" (keyboards)
• Raides à la ville (by Katel) (2006)
  • "La Vielle" (violin)
• 13m² (by David Delabrosse) (2006)
  • production and arrangements
• Solitude Nomade (by Christine Ott) (2009)
  • "Pensées sauvages" (violin)
• Finistériens (by Miossec) (2009)
  • music and arrangements
• Li(f)e (by Sage Francis) (2010)
  • production and arrangements on "The Best of Times"

DVDs[link]

See also[link]

• Tiersen

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

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