This episode brings Melody A.M.’s attention back to Norway with singer-songwriter, Ane Brun, who this year celebrates a very special anniversary: 20 years since the release of her debut album, Spending Time With Morgan. 

To mark the occasion, Brun has recently released a new retrospective record, Songs 2013-2023, highlighting peak points from her studio recordings in the past 10 years, as well as another collection, Portrayals, which collates some of the best-loved cover versions she has recorded, including her portrayal of Beyonce’s 'Halo', with Linnea Olsson, which has had over 65m streams on Spotify alone, to date. 

Spending Time With Morgan came out when Ane Brun was 27 year-old. After flitting and flatting between her Norwegian hometown of Molde and Barcelona, Oslo and Bergen for several years, she eventually settled in Sweden. The album was recorded in Stockholm and Uppsala and its recording was financed through Brun's salary from working at a record store, academic scholarships she’d been awarded and loans from friends who wanted to help her out in return for a future percentage of sales. 

When the album was done, Brun really loved the songs and the recordings. She presented a sampler of the album to 4 or 5 record companies and also to some other music business people, but their response was slow and unenthusiastic and she was so hungry to get started, that she decided that it was better to release the music herself, instead of waiting around for anyone else’s permission to do so.

In the 20 years since that album’s release, Brun has made her mark not only on the Nordic music scene but all over the world, with an initially folky twist on pop and, in more recent years, an underlying rhythmic and electronic feel to the production. 

Speaking with Melody A.M. from her studio, Brun reflects on her two decades in the music business, she shares some details about her next studio album, which she is hopeful to release in 2024, and we also explore the impact of A.I. on musicians and creativity.