Six studio albums since her 2003 debut Spending Time with Morgan (not forgetting two live albums, and two compilations) makes Norway's Ane Brun a reasonably prolific songwriter.
The daughter of jazz singer/pianist Inger Johanne Brunvoll, it’s clear the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and by 2001 – by which time Brun had moved to Stockholm, following the completion of her third-level education, and tiring of working for a living in bars and various shops – she was writing songs that would pave a singular path for her.
When I'm Free is Brun's sixth studio album, and continues her steady progress to fashioning a catalogue of music that is informed by her musical tastes (2008's Changing of the Seasons was influenced by Bonnie Prince Billy's 2006 "Icelandic" album, The Letting Go; 2012's It All Starts with One was inspired by Nina Simone and Madonna's 1998 album Ray of Light). On When I'm Free, the stimuli include Lauryn Hill, DJ Shadow, and Charles Mingus.
In other words, across the album there is an often sublime sense of space and sensuality, jazz and joy. Songs such as Directions, All We Want is Love, You Lit my Fire, Black Notebook, Better than This, Signing Off and Shape of a Heart display a perhaps too archetypal chilled Scandinavian sophistication, but the inherent elegance and creative progressions of these (and a few more besides) offset such doubts.
It helps tremendously, of course, when you have musicians that have previously played with Esbjorn Svensson Trio (bassist Dan Berglund), Wildbirds & Peacedrums (drummer Andreas Werliin), Lykke Li (Lars Skoglund) and John Eriksson (Peter, Born & John), but the lynchpin from start to end is Ane Brun herself. Distinctive, spontaneous (and immeasurably confident with it), as well as possessing a crystal-clear voice, she sets a beguiling soul/jazz trap from which there is no escape.
Not that you’d want to.
