The Swell Season: 2025

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

The chemistry between Czech singer-songwriter Markéta Irglová and her Irish counterpart, Glen Hansard, of The Swell Season is undeniable. It was especially clear in director John Carney's 2007 film "Once," where Irglová and Hansard play two aspiring musicians who meet on the streets of Dublin and end up falling in love. In fact the song "Falling Slowly," which they co-wrote along with the rest of the soundtrack, earned them an Academy Award.

"Once" became a part of the cultural zeitgeist, eventually adapted into a musical on Broadway, parodied on "The Simpsons," and even referenced in "Ted Lasso."

Irglová and Hansard's first album was released a year before the movie. Prior to The Swell Season, Hansard was thriving with The Frames, his other band. But as The Swell Season, the folk duo released the stunning Strict Joy in 2009.  After that release, the pair went their separate ways with each of them releasing solo records and living life with marriages and kids.

Remarkably, they've now reunited for their first new album in 16 years, Forward. Irglová and Hansard recently stopped by Studio A to talk about how different, and yet the same, it has been to work together again after such a long stretch apart. 

[Recorded: 3/24/25; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Erin Merriman, Nadia Garriga, and Emerald Ragan. Produced by Meghan Suma. Videographers: Olivia Iannaccone, Therese Burgo, Adithi Vimalanathan, Sophia Yoerks and Gina Slavin.]