For a nation in thrall to the music of Scandinavia, Britain has been surprisingly impervious to the charms of Ane Brun.
Born in Norway but based in Stockholm, the 39-year-old is a major force back home, where her intense singer-songwriter fare has seen her hoover up Norwegian Grammies (or Spellemannprisen) like an anteater.
It’s time we started taking notice too.
Brun has been forced to cancel tours in the past, due to her ongoing battle with the auto-immune disease lupus, but last night she was on scintillating form.
Islington Assembly Hall provided the suitably reverential surroundings in which to hear her sophisticated pop songs, while an adoring crowd greeted material old and new as if she was a returning war hero. Hanging, the opening track from this year’s When I’m Free, blended Brun’s banshee-like vocals with muscular backing from her six-piece band.
Recent single Directions came complete with a Teflon chorus and some avant-garde dancing from the former gymnast.
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The oom-pah beats and Hammer horror piano of It All Starts With One made it Marmite music of the first order, while even the greatest lap-steel solo in living memory failed to resuscitate the lifeless Worship.
Still, Brun was full of righteous passion on You Lit My Fire — dedicated to “the woman who died so that other women could have human rights” — and successfully transformed into an enthralling folk singer when cradling an acoustic guitar on All We Want Is Love.
This slippery, shape-shifting quality may make Brun a less marketable export than her
poppier peers, but it’s also what makes her so important right now: a daring artist singing strange and complex songs for strange and complex times.
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