Fans of Glen Hansard, Once, the Frames, and the Swell Season rejoice: The Swell Season is so good that it hurts. Beautifully and thoughtfully shot in high quality black and white, this unbelievable snapshot of the ebb and flow of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's relationship during the rise of the Swell Season is an absolute do-not-miss.

It's a documentary about -- well, the technical description goes as follows:

In 2008, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová captivated audiences with Once, a fictional musical romance that became reality, and led to a jubilant Oscar® win for Best Original Song. As their fictional romance blurred with reality, the couple fell in love, recorded an album, and embarked on a world tour. The Swell Season is an intimate portrait of the couple during this time, following them on tour and chronicling their incredible musical performances.

But what started out as a fairly straight-forward music documentary, albeit one filmed with gorgeous black and white cinematography, became much more. Two years of exhilaration, performance, and psychological turmoil began to take a toll on the pair, and The Swell Season became a portrait of a romance that fractures in the face of life on the road and personal tragedy. Though Glen and Markéta's relationship unhinges, it is the music that ultimately prevails as their enduring connection.

What's staggering about this film, both from a fan perspective as well as one of a thin-skinned heart-on-her-sleeve human being one is the out and out tangibility of it all. Having a front-row seat to the emotional intimacy between Glen and Marketa is almost too much to bear, from the joys and the songwriting sessions to the uncomfortable silences and the falling aparts. At any given moment, we're caught up in the rush and the bliss, the childlike love, the bonding of band members, the familial elements that develop on the road -- and the next transported into Glen's mother's kitchen, witness to parent-son interactions that almost make you feel like you should excuse yourself from the room to let them talk.

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Seven bands, nine hours, sixty-eight degrees, three rounds of busking, and a good helping of some straight-out wonderfulness: it all adds up to this year's No Depression Festival up at the lush, lovely Marymoor park in Redmond. With stellar sets from bands like The Swell Season, the Cave Singers, Alejandro Escovedo, and Sera Cahoone -- well, it's tough to find anything bad to say. We got our indie roots on all day, and through part of the night -- without a curfew, I'm quite sure Glen Hansard and Co. would have sang us straight through to the sunrise.

Sera Cahoone, warming up the post-Maldives crowd.

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Check it out!

We're giving away two tickets to this year's No Depression festival!

On August 21st, the grounds of Marymoor Park (Redmond, WA) will be graced with not just one or two, but seven swoonworthy acts to fit the taste of every alt.americana, alt.country, and modern-folk indie-roots enthusiast within driving distance. Performers like Lucinda Williams and the Cave Singers will be sharing the stage at the second annual installment of ND, following in the footsteps of stellar sets from last year's big name headliners -- Gillian Welch, Iron & Wine, and Jessica Lea Mayfield, just to name a few.

Did we forget to mention that the Swell Season is headling? Silly us! If you haven't bought yourself some tickets already -- and even if you already have -- you might want to take a moment right now to enter our ticket giveaway. Send an email to tig@threeimaginarygirls.com with the subject line SummerIsTheSwellestSeason and tell us why you think we should send you off to the Park for the day!

The only full-font fine-print is that entries must be recieved by midnight on Wednesday, August 11th to be entered into the drawing. Winners will be announced on Friday, August 13th. There's no catch! You can even bring your underagers, since No Depression is an all-ages event.

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at Paramount Theater

Somewhere in the midst of plush seating, complete and utter emotional annihilation, and a sea of gorgeous cartoon owl-laced merchandise lies this fall's Swell Season tour. Showcasing to many a seated theater across the states behind last month's release of Strict Joy, Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and ninety-nine percent of the Frames swept last Sunday's crowd at the Paramount through one of the most compelling sets I've seen in recent years. Moving seamlessly from duo opener to full band to solo-singer-in-a-spotlight and back again, the show that these honest, earnest musicians put on was nothing short of true genius.

Glen and Marketa took the lead for the bulk of the opening songs (hence the sea of Glen photos), and proceeded to filter in the rest of the Frames for another half-dozen songs before Glen took solo center-stage rights mid-set. And this, as they say, is where the proverbial magic happened. What happened during Glen's solo piece of the performance rivaled even his mindbending set in Austin this past summer -- complete with a series of broken strings, a raging Van Morrison cover, and a rendition of "Say it to Me Now" microphone-free from the very front edge of the stage. Unlike some recent seated performances we've attended lately, this crowd was rapt -- absolutely and utterly rapt -- with attention for every moment of every song. And in-between fighting off a full-on sob festival and losing my lens cap, I took note (and very much appreciated) the lockdown that the Paramount staff imposed on seating, ushering in a few people every three songs or so and only during breaks in the performance.

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This not a test. I repeat: this is not a test. This is an actual ticket giveaway. (It's so good, I almost thought that we were kidding.)

The Swell Season will be stopping by the Paramount this Sunday, touring in support of Strict Joy which hit the shelves a few weeks ago at record stores across the States. The lucky winner will not only receive a pair of 14th row floor seats (!!!), but they'll also get a print of this limited edition tour poster made just for the Seattle date of the tour. Email tig@threeimaginarygirls.com with the subject line "StrictJoyInSeattle" to get in the running!

For anyone out-of-town that can't catch a Swell Season date on their relentless upcoming tour schedule, here's the link to Glen and Marketa's recent visit to NPR. (Click "Listen Now" at the top of the page for the full twelve minute interview on "All Things Considered".) I often will quip that performances like these are pull-the-car-over-and-stop kind of amazing, and that's exactly what this performance caused me to do. If you have the time, it's well worth the watch for both the sings and the interview. Enjoy!

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I want to sit you down and talk -- I want to pull back the veil and find out what it is I've done wrong, Glen Hansard croons earnestly. It's the first line from the opening track of the new Swell Season album, Strict Joy. The song "Low Rising" is at once classic Hansard -- heartache, folklore, anguished cries in the middle of a set of casual, life-altering sentences -- and also a gorgeous representation of what old fans will refer to as the 'newer' signature sound of the Swell Season. Hansard's achy, telltale traits are layered in with Marketa Irglova's delicate shared-lead vocals, which vary across the tracks from barely-secondary to her Damien Rice-esque lead on "Fantasy Man." Add in some catchy choruses, two parts major-label caliber production, and a few members of the Frames -- and you've got the perfect follow-up to the Once soundtrack.

Having been a Frames fan for quite a few years now, I was happy to hear the full-band style of the Strict Joy tracks carrying hints of a restrained, filtered-down hint of their tone, as Colm Maclomaire, Joe Doyle, and Rob Bochnik are all contributing members to the Swell Season sound. Which is not to pigeonhole the Swell Season as a side-project of any sort, as it solidly stands on its own legs among Frames and non-Frames albums alike. The dozen tracks wind the listener from the feel-good ache of "Low Rising" to the sad, haunted "The Rain," crossing to the distant, staring-out-the-window-of-the-train movie-scene sound of "Paper Cup." The beginning of the album never stalls out, laying out tracks cohesively one after the other, seamless but not too similar; constantly pretty and yet shot through with knife-in-the-gut writing that begs you to pull the car over and pay attention.

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