Ane Brun announces SONGS 2013-2023 album
ANE BRUN MARKS SECOND DECADE AS ONE OF SCANDINAVIA’S MOST DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS WITH NEW COMPILATION, 'SONGS 2013-23'
PLUS NEW SONG, ‘HAND IN THE FIRE’
Ten years after celebrating her first decade as a recording artist with the release of SONGS 2003-13, the distinguished, platinum selling ANE BRUN has announced details of SONGS 2013-23, which draws on her second decade as one of Norway’s most decorated contemporary artists.
The sixteen-track collection contains songs from 2015’s When I’m Free and the pandemic era’s twin releases, 2020’s richly textured After The Great Storm and the more fragile, intimate How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow, and also includes a previously unreleased, brand-new track, ‘Hand In The Fire’.
The album, like all of Brun’s solo work, is released by her own independent label, Balloon Ranger Recordings, on 12th May, 2023 and will be available on CD, LP and via all DSPs. It follows the release this March of Portrayals, a collection of a dozen of Brun’s most acclaimed covers, and precedes a 20th Anniversary European Tour later this year. Pre-order from https://balloon-ranger.lnk.to/1323
With three Norwegian Grammys and two Swedish Grammys among the multiple awards lined up on her shelf, BRUN has seen her international reputation flourish over the course of the last ten years on the back of world tours and prestigious concerts, not least with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (which birthed 2018’s Live at Berdwardhallen album, her third live collection). She’s contributed, as well, to multiple film soundtracks – among them a collaboration with Emmy Award-winning Dustin O’Halloran on 2018’s Puzzle OST – and she even enjoyed an unlikely UK Top 5 hit in 2015 singing on Dr Kucho! & Gregor Salto’s ‘Can’t Stop Playing (Makes Me High)’, which, incidentally, she co-wrote. And all that’s not to mention the small matter of her invitations to perform at the 2017 Nobel Prize Dinner and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony. There is, it’s fair to say, a lot to celebrate.
BRUN’s pure, seraphic voice, with its quiet, distinctive flutter, has always been crucial to her appeal, its tone suggestive of someone who’s not only endured their own share of suffering but who is also, as ‘Don’t Run And Hide’ declares, “here for you”. Not that these tunes are downcast, least of all the elated ‘Take Hold Of Me’. “I think a lot of my music is about being free,” she says, “being authentic to yourself, being open to life, to love, to experiencing all that life can bring, and going through all its transitions. It’s about what holds us back, and about accepting that life has darkness but still always moving towards the light. And it’s about hope. Lots of hope.”
BRUN’s success, all the same, depends on more than an uncommon capacity for empathy. Her songs are as laden with boldly uplifting sentiments as they are with comfortingly melancholic melodies, and to listen to each one is to turn to an old friend, whether at a time of need or for company. Who could not be lifted by ‘Crumbs’, in which Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson’s backing vocals provide the very redemption the song’s lyrics deny, nor touched by the compassion in ‘Lose My Way’, again recorded with Dustin O’Halloran, not to mention the string-embellished folk of ‘All We Want Is Love’? How could anyone remain still during the gently swaying ‘You Lit My Fire’ or the soulful, trip-hop inspired ‘Honey’, and what heart could remain unmoved by the slowly swelling ‘Fingerprints’ or not be unburdened by the deft ‘Black Notebook’?
That’s not to overlook the soothing ‘Trust’, which arrived just as the devastating loneliness of the pandemic hit home, and the luxurious ‘After The Great Storm’, which anticipated the sense of relief felt as it finally subsided. ‘Hand In The Fire’, meanwhile, displays once again the eastern charms that have sporadically influenced other songs, among them ‘Worship’, her duet with José González on 2011’s It All Starts With One. In true BRUN tradition, it offers encouragement, this time “to someone who’s feeling unable to break free from something that’s holding them back from fulfilling their potential.” The track was written in Tuscany in 2022 and features cellist Linnea Olsson (a regular collaborator) as well as Samuel Starck, who played a big role on After The Great Storm, and Per Eklund, who performed on her two most recent albums as well as It All Starts With One. It was mixed and mastered by Prash ‘Engine-Earz’ Mistry.
SONGS 2013-23 contains the following songs:
Hand In The Fire / Directions / Don’t Run And Hide / Crumbs / Lose My Way / Take Hold Of Me / Honey / You Lit My Fire / All We Want Is Love / Trust / Hanging / Black Notebook / After The Great Storm / Closer / Fingerprints / Last Breath
BRUN has also announced a series of shows across Europe later this year as part of her 20th Anniversary Tour and will play live at the 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on October 14th.
Tickets are available here.
22.09 HELSINKI House Of Culture
27.09 STOCKHOLM Cirkus
29.09 JÖNKÖPING, Spira
30.09 MALMÖ Live Konserthus
01.10 GÖTEBORG Konserthuset
14.10 LONDON Shepherd’s Bush Empire
20.10 ANTWERP De Roma
21.10 PARIS La Cigale
22.10 UTRECH Ronda
04.11 ÖREBRO Konserthuset
05.11 UPPSALA UKK
08.11 BODØ Svømmehallen Scene
09.11 TROMSØ Driv
15.11 OSLO Sentrum Scene
16.11 OSLO Sentrum Scene
17.11 STAVANGER Konserthus
19.11 BERGEN Grieghallen
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