Norwegian chanteuse Ane Brun finally releases her first album in the UK next Monday, February 2nd. She’s new to most Brits but she’s already released five albums in Scandinavia. Her sudden appearance in the UK is largely down to the Sky HD adverts that were screened in the run up to Christmas. Sky granted her the holy grail of a sync – and used her eerily beautiful version of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colours’ as backing music in the ad. Such was the popularity of the song, it was released as a single at the end of December and decided that her first UK album was imminent.
And so we get ‘Changing Of The Seasons’. This isn’t the sort of music we really like. And if truth be told, we’d rather she’d have covered ‘Into The Nightlife’ if she insisted on raiding Cyndi Lauper’s back catalogue for a gem! But her music is just so nice that we can’t help but enjoy it. It’s mainly down to her voice, which has that special something which eludes her contemporaries. Ane’s tones stir an interest that other folk girls don’t, and perhaps that’s why folk music has never had an easy ride making it onto our iPods, or even been afforded a listen. It probably also helps that there’s lots of piano throughout the album, rather than just stripped guitar. And whereas most folk music sounds like summer – this sounds like winter. Which we like. There’s nothing on there that we prefer to ‘True Colours’, but ‘Big In Japan’ comes a close second.
Don’t take our word for it though, as we know fuck all about this sort of music. But do take a listen to some of it over at her myspace; www.myspace.com/anebrun
