Don+t Settle (Vol. 2 – Transmissions West)

Glen Hansard — 2026

“Don+t Settle (Vol. 2 – Transmissions West) captures Glen Hansard exactly as fans will want to remember him: raw, generous, and giving everything to the room.”

Some records hit different after the fact, and this is one of them. Glen Hansard recorded Don+t Settle (Vol. 2 – Transmissions West) live over two spring nights at Berlin’s Funkhaus, and after his death on July 29, it plays like a farewell nobody wanted but one I am incredibly grateful we have. This is the back half of the story, of course, ten songs that pick up where Vol. 1 – Transmissions East left off in April. Together, the two volumes reach across every corner of his career: the solo albums, the years fronting The Frames, The Swell Season, and everything between. Anyone who caught Hansard on stage knows the man gave a full 110 percent at every show, whether he was playing a festival or the back room of a pub. His presence could lift a room no matter its size, pulling strangers into the same feeling until the space seemed small and close. You can hear that all over this. When his voice climbs into a full throated howl on the peaks, the crowd is right there with him, and the recording catches it in the most natural way.

There is no polish here and none was needed. No overdubs, no second takes, nothing patched after the fact, so every crack and gasp stays put, highlighting the kind of performer Glen was. On the quieter turns you can hear his fingers move across the strings before a chord fully rings out, and that close sincerity is the whole appeal. The songs here have a different pulse with people in the room, looser and more urgent at once, which always seemed to be his argument: a song only truly lives once someone is there to hear it. This is the second half, of course, and if you sit down and pair it with Vol. 1, the full picture only gets stronger. A few reinterpretations push beyond the studio versions with an urgency that gives longtime fans something genuinely new. That is especially clear on the Once stand out, “When Your Mind’s Made Up,” where the crowd singing along keeps lifting the song to another level. Looking back across decades of work, he still sounds like a man reaching forward, right up to the end. His catalog will live on. We will miss you, Glen.