Norse of a different colour

29-year-old Ane Brun came to music quite late, having only started playing guitar at 21 and writing her first songs two years later.

The intervening six years have seen her release two hugely successful albums, her debut, Spending Time, and her latest effort, A Temporary Dive, which went to number one in her native Norway and Top Ten in her adopted home of Sweden.
“If you had asked me when I was 21, I would never have guessed that nine years later I would be in Dublin doing promo for my new album,” Brun smiles. But it has been a heady rise for the former rhythm gymnast (she was ranked number five in Norway during her teens), who set up her own record label, Determine Records, in Stockholm in 2000 with a musician friend of hers.
A radio hit in Norway prompted massive interest in Ane’s music and her small fledgling label began to take flight.
She has always written songs in English, as she explains that singing in Norwegian makes the music automatically take on a somewhat traditional form.
“The music that I'm inspired by is more American and English, and I can’t do that with my own language, because it’s a different sound.”
Indeed, her songs evoke the warmth and emotional depth of Americana. Her new album even includes a duet with Canadian guitarslinger, Ron Sexsmith.
Seeing as her songs are so personal and emotive, I wondered if it’s hard to get that breadth of feeling across in a language other than her native tongue?
“I’ve always liked language, so it’s not hard in a negative way: it’s more of a challenge that I like,” she grins. “I sit with the dictionary when I’m writing songs, so that I can explore the language. I think it’s fun.“
A Temporary Dive, now being released in Ireland, is not the happiest album in the world, dealing with a period of time when Ane was physically and emotionally drained after the stresses and strains of releasing and promoting her debut record.
“It’s my way of venting my bad side through my lyrics,” she notes. “I remember when I was going to release it for the first time in Scandinavia and I thought, some people are going to be unsettled by this record because it’s heavy shit sometimes.”
Indeed, so emotionally fraught is the record that Ane’s father felt compelled to take her aside to make sure his daughter wasn’t suffering from depression.
“I think he got worried when he started listening to the lyrics,” she smiles, fondly.
“But I’m not a sad person. It was a rough time when I wrote this album. I was completely burnt out and was trying to cope with that. It was the worst crash I’ve had and the songs were a way of comforting me and getting me out of there.”