Ane Brun - Duets (2005) [MP3 320]

In my relatively short career as an artist I had until a year ago not been involved in many cooperation’s with other solo artists. Somehow I feel that we usually tend to go down our own solitary paths. It is of course a very egocentric path, and in my case it has been a conscious choice. Somehow it is for me the only way to full fill my abstract ”needs” to express myself artistically. At least that is how it has been until recently, but the last few months have made me think differently.

It somehow started some time ago when I did cooperation with the Swedish musician and songwriter Nina Ramsby. We did a short set together where we played each other’s songs and rehearsed new versions of them together. We performed them at the Ladyfest in Stockholm. In the time after that show I felt a rush of inspiration because of all the new energy this session created. But nevertheless I continued down my path. In the next few monts I had a few more similar encounters. Such as recording the Ron Sexsmith duet for my second album, and also the ”Stop” duet with Liv Widell (”My lover will go” EP).

After releasing ”A temporary dive” in February 2005 I travelled around Europe playing and doing promotion. I guess this period was kind of the peek of what I mentioned earlier when it comes to the egocentric life of a solo artist. Everything you do is related to yourself. In my case; I perform my songs, written from a subjective perspective and I do interviews about things related to these songs and to me as a person. This intense period almost made me alienated towards why I even started writing and playing music. I didn’t have the varicosity of my everyday life at home, so it felt like existing in a bubble. Of course, I realise that what I experienced was nothing new. People have told this story many times before.

However, I got a pleasant awakening sometime during these months. I was invited by the Norwegian Radio One to go on a short tour in Norway. The idea behind it was to let five Scandinavian artists meet and make a concert together. I had only met one of them before, and that was Teitur. I had no idea of how much this short tour would mean to me. Incredible musical meetings emerged from only one day of rehearsal. After four days on the road with these musicians, songwriters and wonderful people I went back to Sweden feeling inspired and happy.

Me and my colleagues at DetErMine recs. realised sometime during spring 2005 that I had already finished 6 duets in a few months! And because of my new-found eager to collaborate with others, I felt more than happy to fulfil our vision of making a complete album of duets.

The process has been very rewarding. I faced new challenges on every duet. Especially the ones where my duet-partner had written the song we had chosen. It happened a few times that a song didn’t really fit my vocal range. This forced me into searching for new ways of singing. I believe I will take advantage of this in my future song writing.
But first and foremost it has been a lot of fun doing this, and I had the opportunity to work with ten of my favourite artists, who each and everyone has their very own artistic expression. Some of them I knew already, and some became my friends during this time.

Well, enough said. Enjoy!