Music News

Glen Hansard – announces new album Don+t Settle – Transmissions East & West – catch him live at The Summer Series at Trinity College Dublin. Watch the live performance video for ‘Didn’t He Ramble’

Don+t Settle – Transmissions East & West is an expansive collection featuring live reinterpretations of some of his most loved and cherished songs from across his solo career, as well as his work as the frontman of The Frames and half of the Oscar winning duo The Swell Season.

Friday 24th April 2026 will see 10 of these tracks released first as Transmissions East (Vol. 1).

Hansard and his band recorded the album over two nights in April 2025 in front of a dedicated audience at Berlin’s historic Funkhaus–an expansive former East German radio facility–and in many ways, it encapsulates multiple things at once: a career retrospective opus, a ‘Best Of’ collection, a live record, and a new studio album. The inspiration for Don+t Settle – Transmissions East & West came from a memorable rain-soaked outdoor performance at Zuiderparktheater in The Hague in summer 2024, when Hansard invited audience members onstage during a storm, creating an impromptu communal experience that would help to shape the record’s concept.

Transmissions East (Vol. 1) is the first release in a two-volume set with the 2nd, Transmissions West (Vol. 2), appearing later this year.

Both volumes feature no vocal overdubs, second takes, autotune, or editing–brilliantly showcasing the breadth of Hansard’s talents and songwriting. In all, Don+t Settle – Transmissions East & West feels like an important demarcation point in an already storied career, with Hansard looking backwards within his creative path while he moves forward–‘transmissions’ both from his past and to his future.Hansard today shared his new version of “Didn’t He Ramble” from Vol. 1about which he explained:

“Our local bar was The Ramble Inn. My father spent most of his waking and sometimes sleeping hours in there…he’d ramble in and stumble out. I wrote this song after he passed at the fair young age of 62. The kind of tribute song he would have approved of. My father was a proud man. Loved his family and his drink in equal measure. My father showed his love shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. He drove The Frames amps and instruments around for years. Rarely staying for the show. But always there to load out the gear with the band afterwards. I loved him very much and wanted to write him a tribute song he’d enjoy. I raise my voice, and a glass to Jemo Hansard.”

The track listing of the Vol. 1 is as follows:

Don’t Settle

Down On Our Knees

Back Broke

My Little Ruin

Didn’t He Ramble

Fitzcarraldo

Carrickfergus

Lonely Deserter

The Feast Of St John

Wreckless Heart

Cat. Number: PLATEAU75

Formats: CD, black vinyl & solid grey D2C edition vinyl.

Pre-order the album HERE.

Additionally, Glen heads out on a U.K. / EU headline tour in later spring which concludes at The Summer Series at Trinity College on Thursday 2^nd July. The full list of

dates is as follows:

30.04.26 – Olympia – PARIS

02.05.26 – TivoliVredenburg – UTRECHT

03.05.26 – TivoliVredenburg – UTRECHT

06.05.26 – E-Werk – COLOGNE

08.05.26 – Columbianahalle – BERLIN

09.05.26 – Lucerna Velky Sal – PRAGUE

11.05.26 – Gasometer – VIENNA

13.05.26 – Tonhalle – MUNICH

14.05.26 – Volkshaus – ZURICH

16.05.26 – De Roma – ANTWERP

17.05.26 – Stadtpark Open Air – HAMBURG