Ane Brun
Ane Brun has returned with the Deluxe Edition of It All Starts With One, which offers fans ten new bonus tracks.
I caught up with to talk about the new tracks, the success of the album as well as the live dates she has been playing in the UK.
- You have just released the deluxe version of It All Starts With One so what can Ane Brun fans expect from the ten new tracks?
There’s a bit more spice I guess than the other songs as they are mostly duel recordings, guitar and vocals and piano and vocals, so it’s a bit laid back than the rest of the album.
But at the same time it has the same sound as everything else but less going on. And then there are covers as well as my own songs.
- You have touched on my next question really as you say you have gone down a more sparse path so what made you want to record in this way as they are completely different from the songs on disk one?
The thing is we did all of the songs at the same time and some of the tracks we thought about putting on the album while others we knew that they were going to be bonus tracks.
So this is how the two albums ended up in the end as we felt that they fitted better together as a special disk rather than being on the album.
For me, if you look back on my career, sparsety is very much part of my sound so it is nothing new for me, in fact it’s possibly closer to what I have done before than the actual album is.
- It All Starts With One is already a critically acclaimed record so what new dimension to these new tracks add to this record?
We really love these tracks and we didn’t want them to just disappear so they are just a bonus really. It is just more the fans who wanted more music.
- The new tracks were produced by Tobias Froberg so how did that collaboration come about? What does his experience bring to the record?
Tobias and I have known each other for years, since we did the first album back in 2003, and we have been friends. He has been an artist as well and releasing albums and now he has been a producer for a few years now.
I have wanted to do an album with him for a long time as we have only done single songs together.
So we decided to work together and I will probably work with him again because it is really fun.
- So what does his experience bring to the record?
Well he brought in the whole sound of the album as he thought out and planned a new sound of me after making four albums.
When we got into the studio to start recording the album he already had a plan about how it was going to sound and when I put on my headphones he had already created that sound.
So we were recording the album with the finished product already in our heads and I found it inspiring to sing in a room of sound. He is important in the production of this record.
- I talk to musicians all the time and some say that they don’t enjoy the album recording/creating process so is making an album a process that you enjoy?
Oh yes I love going into the studio to create an album. I think that there is a real novelty when you record a song for the first time it’s like when you have just fallen in love with someone; it’s very different than when you perform the songs live.
My relationships with my songs are like romantic relationships because I fall in love with it and then I play it a lot of times and after I have played them on a few tours they become like old friends but them maybe one night I will get that old feeling again.
For me the studio is very creative and while live you are doing the same thing all over again it’s a different kind of reward. So for me it is two very different things.
- You burst to prominence back in 2003 and since then you have had albums Spending Time With Morgan and Changing of the Season so how have you seen yourself develop as a musician since your debut?
I think I have developed so much because I started out as a total beginner and very much a self taught musician.
Every album has been a step forward and I am glad that I have had this journey because I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t.
It’s been like a working education really these last few years as I have very much been learning as I have been doing it
- You have penned the tracks on the album so what is your inspiration from a song-writing perspective?
I write about mostly myself and my life but also relationships of the people around me and things that are close to me.
I also write about a relationship with myself and with life and how to deal with things, I pick out small elements of life and try to research what is going on.
It’s very therapeutic and trying to figure things out through poetry they can be moments or just seconds of my life that I feel like digging into.
- Where did your love of music start? And when was the moment you realised that you could actually do this as a career?
I have always loved and listened to music, as a teenager I was a gymnast and a dancer and so music was a big part of that. I played the piano and I sung a lot at home as my mother is a music teacher so all through my upbringing music has been very naturally a part of everything.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started playing guitar, singing and doing my own thing and I was a student at university for a few years.
I was twenty six or twenty seven that I noticed that music was taking all of my attention and all of my time and that I felt like I wanted to put my whole attention into music.
For a long time I felt like I wanted to keep music as a hobby because it was so important to me and something and precious - but I realise that I could still keep it precious even though I was doing it as a job. And I don’t regret the decision that I made.
- You have just played your biggest shows in the UK in Dublin and London’s Shepherd’s Bush so how excited were you to get back on stage here in the UK?
I was very excited because it was so much fun last time, we were here in November last year, and it’s so great to see that I have got a bigger audience than I use to.
I also love playing my lyrics in English speaking countries because I write my lyrics in English - it feels different when you are singing to someone who does have English as a mother tongue. So I enjoy it.
- Finally what’s coming up for you?
I have the U.S. release in May which is followed by a U.S. tour and then there are summer festivals. We are releasing in Australia and New Zealand as well. So I am going to continue to promote the album and then write more songs.
Ane Brun - It All Starts With One Deluxe Edition is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw