Glen Hansard – All That Was East Is West of Me Now

You know Glen Hansard, right? Wrong. Hansard, the musician best known for his work with The Frames, The Swell Season and the Oscar-winning Once, is an Irish songwriter with the reputation of a troubadour telling tales behind a battered acoustic guitar with a bucketful of Dublin charm. The rub? He’s released a restless handful of solo albums since said Hollywood statue set his songwriting in stone.

Hansard's work under his own name has been a search for music to suit his mood swings and his fifth solo LP, All That Was East Is West of Me Now, begins as a noisy yet meditative record with crunching guitars and snapping snares, before settling into a more reflective pattern to suit the resigned sighs and stuttering sounds his tunes twist taut upon. Sure, there are sentimental ballads and string-assisted bombast here, but for the most part, Hansard has turned away from Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen and set his sights on the space between, say, Villagers and Elbow.

The album title comes from the “sudden realisation that there’s more behind than ahead”, he has said. All That Was East Is West of Me Now is the sound of a songwriter looking into that deep, dark, truthful mirror.

Listen to: Short Life, Between Us There Is Music, Down On Our Knees