Singer-Songwriters : Once: Music From The Motion Picture

Once: Music From The Motion Picture

CDN$ 10.55

  1. Falling Slowly
  2. If You Want Me
  3. Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy
  4. When Your Minds Made Up
  5. Lies
  6. Gold
  7. The Hill
  8. Fallen from the Sky
  9. Leave
  10. Trying to Pull Myself Away
  11. All the Way Down
  12. Once
  13. Say It to Me Now

Even those allergic to musicals may be won over by Once, a tender-hearted Irish romance with songs by Czech Republic-born Markéta Irglová and Frames frontman Glen Hansard. (The film s director, John Carney, actually used to play bass in the group.) The trick here is that Irglová and Hansard also play the leads, because their characters are shown busking, writing music, or rehearsing, the songs are smoothly integrated in the film. The overall acoustic mood won t surprise fans of the Frames--some tracks (Say It to Me, When Your Mind s Made Up) have even popped up on the band s albums, though the arrangements are more pared-down here, befitting the scruffy, street-musician setting. Being the lesser-known entity, Irglová feels like a revelation, she sounds a bit like a folkie Björk on If You Want Me, and her song The Hill is downright heartbreaking. Irglová and Hansard had already made the 2006 album The Swell Seasontogether, so their collaboration here feels really organic--they sound particularly good together on the title track, for instance. Now that s the kind of magic you want from musicals. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Beautiful - I watched this movie last night, by chance, having never heard of it before, and the one thing that really captivated me was the music. It s beautiful. Not too polished, but full of heart. I immediately went online to see if there was a soundtrack. I can t wait to go buy the cd! I recommend this to anyone who enjoys beautiful, moving music...

Intimate and elegant. - The film s soundtrack is an acoustic strum-heavy affair.Taken away from the context of the film the songs lose a great deal of their emotional resonance.Falling Slowly does well to get things off to a melodically maudlin start, while the quirkily bouncy Fallen From The Sky is a welcome lighter touch.There are some appropriately wistful moments scattered all too sporadically throughout the album. Standout tracks: the haunting and genuinely affecting If You Want Me,Lies, Falling Slowly, and Once.




Once: Music From The Motion Picture