Seraphina Lotkhamnga on May 17th, 2012

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The Troubadour experienced a Scandinavian invasion on Tuesday, but with Ane Brun at the helm of an intimate night, the venue and its patrons welcomed the event with open arms. Foreshadowing an evening of theatrically sophisticated odes to heartbreak and love, the lights dimmed before Brun, a Grammy-winning artist in her homeland Norway, walked underneath so the shadows and colors softly swirled upon her face. Although an artistic touch, it added to the emotional sweep of the avant-garde folk singer’s performance.

• ||| Photos by Debi Del Grande

Going in to a set mostly featuring songs from her latest record, “It All Starts With One,” a four-piece band – consisting of two keyboardists (one of them the night’s opening act Elin Ruth Sigvardsson), a drummer and a cellist, who played bass guitar from time to time – Brun’s hands dramatically went up in the air only to fall below her face during the sparse yet heavy pulses in “These Days.”

The movement didn’t stop there; the flow in Brun traveled from her hands up to her shoulders then back down to her hips, which seemed to be moved by each lyric she sang with closed eyes. Through a delicate harmony on the last lines of “These days / I just talk with you,” Brun’s entire being quickly pulled the audience into her complex world.

Although Brun’s songs elegantly moved from one song to the next, she did pick up the tempo (and the guitar) with songs such as the wise “One” and the ethereal “Worship,” which held up despite missing the Jose Gonzalez vocals that appeared on the album. The final mover and shaker was inevitably the galloping “Do You Remember” (which features First Aid Kit on the recording), with its sliding choruses and tribal foundation.

However, it was the middle of her set that really offered the audience to be a part of the magic. Up until “To Let Myself Go,” Brun was satisfied without small talk and only politely smiled after each song. But considering the fact that this song was a rather old one – a song she had been performing since 2005 – and the artist herself called it an “Ane Brun classic,” a personal anecdote was in order. Continuing to sing about love from both sides, the wounded vs. the stronger, Brun then introduced “Oh Love,” as her “most passionate one,” and justified it with a rhetorical “Because we always need more love right?” Then almost as if she needed to shake off the skepticism, she pulled her captivated fans in for encouragement. Everyone did their part and responded to her line “No I won’t believe” with her suggested but reassuring “Go on ”¦ believe!”

Coming back to a room of thunderous approval, Brun’s encore kicked off with her haunting cover of Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhoods #1 (Tunnels),” and the bittersweet “One Last Try” recalled a relationship “where there was just not enough love / no matter how hard you tried.” The arpeggio-driven song served as a perfect appetizer for her mesmerizing closing numbers “The Light From One” and “Undertow.”

For someone who writes about love’s burns and bruises, Brun certainly did not come off as damaged. Instead, she swiftly transformed herself on stage into a force of sweeping cello, staccato keys and scintillating drums, which she has orchestrated out of her life lessons. As she sang “I am holding your torch / I won’t hold it no more / You can have it” with vocals that both soared and quivered, you know the pain has only made her stronger.

U.K. songstress Gemma Ray (with a little help Everest bass player Elijah Thomson) preceded with songs from her new record “Island Fire.”