The Swell Season is a folk rock duo formed by Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová. "The Swell Season" name is derived from Hansard's favourite novel by Josef Škvorecký from 1975 bearing the same title. Their debut album, released in 2006, carried the same name.
The duo rose to prominence following the success of the 2007 film Once, directed by John Carney, in which the pair starred depicting a dramatised version of their own musical pairing. Their song "Falling Slowly" from the film took the Oscar for Best Song at the 80th Academy Awards. They increasingly referred to themselves as "The Swell Season" in promotion of their performances until it became the formal name of their collaboration in 2008. (They still used their separate names when they contributed their cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" to the 2007 soundtrack of I'm Not There.)
From 2007 through 2010, a documentary film was made about Irglova and Hansard called The Swell Season. The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2011 to positive reviews.[2][3][4]
History
The self-titled first album came about after Hansard and Irglová were approached by the Czech film director Jan Hřebejk while touring in the Czech Republic, and were asked by him to record songs for his upcoming film Beauty in Trouble. It was the first album that Hansard, the singer for The Frames, had released independent of his band.
The tracks "Falling Slowly" and "When Your Mind's Made Up" from their debut album, also appeared on The Frames' album The Cost; these two tracks, along with "Lies" and "Leave" also from the debut album, all appear on the Once soundtrack.
A follow-up album, Strict Joy, was released on 27 October 2009 in the United States.[5] Three singles from the album have been released: "In These Arms", "Low Rising", and "Feeling the Pull".
Spin Magazine's review of Strict Joy gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. It stated "If Glen Hansard's and Markéta Irglová's roles in the hit Irish indie film Once unintentionally wove the tale of their real-life falling in love, their second album as the Swell Season weaves the story of their falling out of it."[6]
At a concert on 19 August 2010 at the Mountain Winery, Saratoga, a concert attendee leapt to his death from the roof of the venue onto the stage. The death was deemed a suicide.[8] The band provided and paid for group counselling sessions for concert attendees who witnessed the event.[9]
In a December 2011 interview in the Huffington Post with Irglová, she revealed that the Swell Season would probably release a third album when Hansard finishes with other commitments, but no third album was made by the duo.[10]
On 10 and 11 January 2015, The Swell Season reunited for two concerts at Sejong Center[11] to celebrate re-releasing Once in South Korea.
In 2021, Hansard confirmed to Variety that The Swell Season would be playing six dates in the U.S in 2022.[12] Seventeen further dates were announced for 2023.
Also in 2023, they recorded a number of new songs in Markéta’s home studio in Iceland, with the first one released being: "(Was it all worth it?) The Answer is Yes".
