Canadian born, North Dakota Native Ana Egge releases her 8th album, Bright Shadow. Produced by Egge herself, Bright Shadow is a collaboration with acclaimed American roots trio, The Stray Birds – Maya De Vitry (fiddle, banjo, vocals), Charles Muench (upright bass, vocals), and Oliver Craven (mandolin, fiddle, slide guitar, vocals) – who join Egge as her band on the album. Egge’s vocals are unique, at the same time both haunting and comforting, reminiscent of the other-worldly quality of Emmylou Harris and the dark sweetness of Aimee Mann, mixed with a smoothness all her own.
Since recording ‘Bright Shadow’, Egge saw the birth of her daughter and the death of her mother, and in retrospect, she says, the songs on the album…
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…mirror these intense and formative life changes. Ana Egge reveals remarkable growth on this latest album, as an artist and a person, recognizing that freedom comes less from fighting the current of the wind, but from being able to yield and follow. She offers her story to the American roots music tradition, an outsider, a wildflower, comfortable in her own skin. Bright Shadow feels at once unique and universal, a hard-learned meditation that, while the darkness can be true, the shadow is proof that the light exists.
The record opens with the soft, quiet “Dreamer”, which features enjoyable vocals and a haunting fiddle. The track is sparse, but that’s what makes it work; it highlights the lyrics, vocals, and a beautiful fiddle. The pure folk “Flat Top Guitar” tells a sad tale of the life of a flat top guitar, playing at county fairs and all around, but now rarely gets played except when the neighbor kid comes over to pick a little. For me, it’s one of the standout tracks on the record, the other standouts being “Rock Me (Divine Mother)”, “Wildflower”, and “Maps Of The Moon”.
The sweet, lullaby like “Rock Me (Divine Mother), is quiet and has a deeply comforting effect on the listener. This track is a feel-good song that you feel deep down in your soul. It’s a beautiful piece of music. Bright Shadow also features a cover of the Dolly Parton favorite, “Wildflower”. It’s sweet, soft, and another very enjoyable song. Egge decides to take a page out of a wildflower’s book and live like a wildflower in the verse, “When a flower grows wild, it can always survive. Wildflowers don’t care where they grow.” A soft, but driving guitar and haunting fiddle envelopes the listener with emotion on “Maps Of The Moon”. It’s a unique, fresh, once in a lifetime song. You hitch a ride on the fiddle notes, flowing up and down, riding through the beautiful song, experiencing every word and emotion in it.
The rollicking, bluegrass flavored “Jenny Run Away” spins a tale of a runaway slave, running for freedom and heading north. The title track, “Bright Shadow”, quietly explores dreams and the reasons we have them, even if we can’t accomplish them. “Fifth Of July” is a haunting, melancholic, fiddle-driven tune about childhood memories. The sad “Turning Away” finds the narrator asking her loved one why they keep turning away from her, after everything she’s done for them, the sacrifices she’s made for them.
The record concludes with the quiet “The Ballad of Jean Genet”, telling a subtle story about a man in love with another man. This is a beautiful yet haunting, depressing yet feel good album. It’s the complete package.
1. Dreamer (2:41)
2. Flat Top Guitar (2:50)
3. Jenny Run Away (2:23)
4. Bright Shadow (2:54)
5. Rock Me (Divine Mother) (3:22)
6. Wildflowers (3:07)
7. Fifth of July (2:34)
8. Maps of the Moon (3:04)
9. Turning Away (2:41)
10. The Ballad of Jean Genet (3:14)