Switched On: Yann Tiersen

“Blustery landscapes transformed by slowly developing horizons into something Underworld might admire.” 

Uncut

"Provoked by Superbooth… Tiersen here inventively cannibalises 2021’s Kerber. This, in other words, is a synth set.” 

Classic Pop

“Attending to his synths and buttons like a fishing boat skipper, Yann negotiates the Roundhouse through a brewing storm.”

Backseat Mafia

Émilie Tiersen has, over the course of two albums and several years, made music as Tiny Feet and is now, with the release of Seim, her debut for Mute, known as QUINQUIS. The name change is symbolic; simultaneously paying homage to her personal and family history by referencing her maiden name, as well as representing a fresh start musically. “It’s been a new start for many things,” Émilie says. “Self-acceptance has been a really big thing for me.”

From forging a deeper connection to her own culture, history and identity, to exploring new musical terrain and becoming a mother, it’s been a period filled with significant change. It was during this time that she began to explore new ideas. “I was on tour with Yann [her husband, Yann Tiersen] and our baby,” she recalls. “During my baby's nap I created a rule for myself: to come up with one new idea in every new city. From the very beginning this was a journey.”

Soon people began to join Émilie on this journey. Characters - some from her own life, others rooted in the history of Breton culture - began to come alive in song ideas. She discovered Ankou, a servant of death in Breton mythology who comes to see you in the year that you die; she explored Seiz Breur, a 1923 Breton art movement founded by a young woman in the very same small village she is from; she tapped into the lives of friends, exploring a rich tapestry of people, places, emotions and stories all tied together by a shared commonplace: Brittany. “I put the stories of those people around mine so that I could have them share this journey with me.”