The Swell Season

In an Academy Awards musical moment that ranks with Elliott Smith’s “Miss Misery” performance or Three 6 Mafia’s unlikely win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” the 2007 best original song Oscar went to singer-songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, collectively known as The Swell Season. Their winning song, “Falling Slowly,” was the lovely highlight of the soundtrack to their tiny indie film Once, a romance in which the couple starred more or less as hardscrabble versions of themselves. Although Irglova’s microphone was cut off before she could utter so much as a “thank you” at the Oscars, host Jon Stewart brought her back onstage after a commercial break to share her modest acceptance speech, a rare moment of humanity in an otherwise rushed and predictable broadcast, and one which further endeared the underdog duo to a growing fan base. This fall the starry-eyed duo returned with a new record, Strict Joy.