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 2nd 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
19.05.26 – Bristol Beacon – BRISTOL20.05.26 – Barrowland – GLASGOW
22.05.26 – Albert Hall – MANCHESTER
23.05.26 – Roundhouse – LONDON
02.07.26 – Trinity College – DUBLIN
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