Ane Brun (born Ane Brunvoll on March 10, 1976) is a Norwegian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer known for an expressive voice, intimate songwriting, and a musical style that moves between indie folk, art pop, electronic pop, and orchestral music. Born in Molde, Norway, she has been based in Stockholm, Sweden, since 2001. Although Norwegian, Brun has written and performed much of her catalog in English, helping her build an audience across Scandinavia and the wider European market.
Brun began performing publicly in the late 1990s and established her own label, DetErMine, with Ellekari Larsson of the Swedish group the Tiny. Her debut album, Spending Time with Morgan, was released in 2003. The record introduced the understated guitar work and emotionally direct writing that would remain central to her music, while also showing an early interest in carefully shaped arrangements and atmospheric production.
Her breakthrough period came with A Temporary Dive (2005), a darker and more expansive album that earned strong attention in Norway and Sweden. The album included "Song No. 6", a duet with Ron Sexsmith, and helped Brun win the Norwegian Spellemann Award for Female Artist. Later in 2005, she released Duets, a collaborative album featuring artists including Sexsmith, Syd Matters, Teitur, Lars Bygden, and Tingsek. Her collaboration with the Norwegian band Madrugada on "Lift Me" became another important success and won a further Spellemann Award.
Brun continued to broaden her sound with Changing of the Seasons (2008), produced by Valgeir Sigurdsson, and Sketches, an accompanying collection of stripped-back versions. Her first live album, Live in Scandinavia, followed in 2007, while Live at Stockholm Concert Hall documented the growing scale of her concert performances. The album It All Starts with One (2011) added larger arrangements and a more international pop sensibility. Around this period, Brun also worked with Peter Gabriel, contributing vocals to his New Blood project and performing on his tour.
When I'm Free (2015) marked Brun's return to original studio material after several years of touring and collaborations. She followed it with Leave Me Breathless (2017), an album of reinterpretations that included songs associated with artists such as Radiohead, Foreigner, and Mariah Carey. Rather than treating the material as conventional covers, Brun reshaped the songs through her own restrained, dramatic performance style.
In 2020, Brun released two closely connected albums, After the Great Storm and How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow. The records combined electronic textures, acoustic instrumentation, vocal harmonies, and more adventurous pop structures. They represented one of the most ambitious stages of her career and earned her two Swedish Grammis in 2021, including Composer of the Year and Best Alternative Pop Album.
She revisited earlier material in Norwegian on Naermere (2022), then marked two decades as a recording artist with the compilation Portrayals, the Rarities 2 collection, and the 20th Anniversary Tour live album in 2023 and 2024. Brun has also collaborated with artists including Aurora, appearing on "My Name" from Aurora's 2024 album What Happened to the Heart?
Her next studio album, I Thought We Were the Same, is scheduled for release on November 6, 2026. Preceded by the single "Hold Me", the project is described as a move toward more pronounced electronic pop while retaining Brun's focus on vulnerability, trust, and emotionally detailed songwriting.