release date: Feb. 7, 2005
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,92]
producer: Katharina Nuttall & Ane Brun
label: DetErMine Records / V2 - nationality: Norway
Track highlights: 1. "To Let Myself Go" - 2. "Rubber & Soul" - 3. "Balloon Ranger" (Remix version) - 4. "My Lover Will Go" (4 / 5) - 5. "A Temporary Dive" (5 / 5) - 6. "Laid in Earth" - 8. "Where Friend Rhymes with End" - 9. "The Fight Song"
2nd studio album by Ane Brun released nearly two years after her fine debut Spending Time with Morgan from Feb. 2003, is once again a collection of songs solely written and composed by Brun herself, albeit with a single cover, "Lady in Earth" by Henry Purcell.
With this album, Brun fulfills her great potential and gives us an even stronger personal collection of songs that are not only based on an American singer / songwriter tradition but is shaped by Nordic folk traditions and first and foremost Brun's very own expression. Stylewise, it's a huge conglomerate borrowing from older European folk traditions rooted in the Middle Ages and in Nordic ballads and then it's condensed through folk rock and baroque pop, and in this mix, something new arises - something that should later be labelled as neo folk. The string arrangements are generally more gently applied, and they're only present on a few tracks, while several songs are arranged with accompanying acoustic guitar only. The title track isn't the only exceptional composition here - in fact, it's hard to point to songs that shouldn't be highlighted as featured songs. It's both an enormously varied and coherent album at the same time. The variation comes in the dosage of an almost locked in emotional expression where Brun sings painfully and sincerely, and then on the other hand, the individual songs also take form as light-hearted humorous comments. The song "Ballon Ranger" would later this year also become a lasting name of a record label founded by Ane Brun. The overall impression is a very strict whole as the instrumentation is nevertheless narrow and seemingly hand-picked or the songs have been cut down to a minimum of accompanying instruments - it's always the acoustic that carries the tracks with Ane Brun's characteristic vibrato and the strumming of her guitar, and which ties it all together ever so nicely.
A Temporary Dive is an outstanding Nordic release with an international sound and then it's also an album that places Norway at the artistic top, not just in Scandinavia, but in modern popular music.
This naturally highly recommended.
[ Pitchfork 7,7 / 10, Slant 4,5 / 5 stars ]
