In my dismal quest to complete all my college work before the end of the Christmas holidays I found myself reading Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure alone in my bed, feeling a little lonesome. Due to my inability to take in any information whilst decent music is playing I often find myself having to choose between keeping up with my work and playing some kickin’ choons. Then the solution hit me: INSTRUMENTALS! I found the key to this to be Yann Tieren’s soundtrack to the popular flick Amelie (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain), and even though I’ve seen the film a number of times before and have come over the songs themselves, I still felt totally shocked about the absolute greatness of it. My favourite track, Le Deux Pianos is a delightfully twinkly piano duet (as the name would suggest) that badly makes me want to practice my piano a lot more and get beyond grade 2.

After consulting my French-studying sister over the translations of the titles we noticed that a running theme of the soundtrack is a waltz. They pop up all over the place, played on an array of instruments including pianos, strings and accordions. Sometimes the music feels really simple and traditional for about a minute, but it almost always steps up into something totally unreserved and becomes this big French orchestra freak out. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Sounding original, kitsch, cute and more than a little funky, if I was granted a soundtrack to my life I would definitely want it to be this.

I’m sorry I can’t find a URL this time. Have a pleasant week.