We were introduced to Norwegian folk chanteuse Anne Marie Almedal in 2013 following the release of Memory Lane (produced by John Wood and Keith Grant and also featuring the legendary Danny Thompson). It was a Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio and out of the gate, our reviewer, Simon Holland, wasted no time in singing her praises:
Perhaps the most immediately striking aspect of Anne Marie Almedal’s Memory Lane is the sheer gorgeousness of it. Everything about it, the sound, the melodies, the arrangements, the songs and above it all Anne Marie’s voice – it’s music to melt even the most glaciated heart. There’s an apparent effortless simplicity to this record that is entirely deceptive, as each track is packed with a lattice of detail and the more you listen, the more you hear. It is at once evocative and mysterious, satisfying and yearning.
In fact, so taken were we with Anne Marie that we sent Simon to the Norwegian Embassy in London to catch her album launch, you can read his recount of the evening here.
Fast-forward to 2019, Anne Marie released a lovely folktronica album titled Lightshadow. Following on from a sell-out tour across concert halls in Norway throughout winter/spring 2019 together with label mates Minor Majority, Anne Marie and her band returned home to Kristiansand, keen to record and capture the live magic of her songs, stripped back to the acoustic core, with no unnecessary production tricknology, only using the natural reverbs in two contrasting light/shadow spaces – a remote Merlinesque cave outside Kristiansand, and the abandoned Agder Theatre, a venue she has performed at many times before in the past, now empty and silent. Since then she has been touring in Scandinavia.
This is such a privilege to watch Anne Marie performing away from the recording studio, with her band. Brit/Norwegian film-maker Iain Forbes has done an incredible job of capturing both the energy and magic of the sessions.
Anne Marie Almedal is currently in winter/spring hibernation, writing new material, and in the meantime happy to see the release of this latest live performance online… a gorgeous 10-minute film showcasing her timeless songs, and hypnotic, uncompromising vocal presence. An undiscovered goddess of folk-pop, here in situ, totally live, together with her trusty musicians, Nicholas Sillitoe, Alf Vaksdal, and Klara Høeg.
Watch her performing My Dream Will Never End and Travelling.
The above film is a sequel to the first Lightshadow Live Session, where Anne Marie performed two naturalismo versions of You Keep Me At Arm’s Length, and Oh Hard Times in similarly special acoustic hometown environments, the desolate bunker of a Second World War cannon Vara and the brutalist state church in Grim, Kristiansand. Both films have been shown at various cinema screenings, the full versions lovingly mixed in surround sound.
See Lightshadow Live Session Volume One here
Anne Marie Almedal “Lightshadow” – Available here: https://believemusic.lnk.to/AMALightshadow