Dag og Tid - Øyvind Vågnes

My song, your song.
Cecilie Anna celebrates the art of songwriting her own way.

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  The first time I listened to ‘I See a Darkness’, one of the tracks on Cecilie Anna’s new album ‘Hommage County’, it was like seeing an old friend. It had been a while since I last listened to Will Oldham’s classic, a song I cherish – who doesn’t? - but it wasn’t long enough to not spot that the song had been equipped with new chords and melody. Realising that a song you love suddenly appears to be completely new? What’s happened?

  The question isn’t as simple as it might seem. Some years ago, I was puzzling over it in a column in this newspaper, ‘Love and Theft’, which was devoted to asking this very question again and again, and there were always new answers to find. If that column was still running, I could have devoted an edition to ‘Hommage County’. I bet Cecilie Anna’s version of ‘I See a Darkness’ will fill Will Oldham with joy. Her interpretation says something about what lives in the song and is in this manner. This in its own power is a way of saying thank you.

  Invitation to interpret
  But it’s not the only thing Oldham can be happy about when facing an album like this. It’s also meant as an invitation to the listener tointerpret and this gives it a unique quality.
  The songs on ‘Hommage County’ are written with four voices that Cecilie Anna loves in mind: Bill Callahan, Will Oldham, Endre Olsen and Anne Gjerstad. The latter two sings their own songs while Cecilie Anna sings for Callahan and Oldham.

  This background serves at first as a starting point for the listener, before it disappears from the thoughts and each song begins to live a life of its own. ‘Hommage County’ still feels like a subtle and deep expression of respect for the distinctive song writing craft of the original author, making a song with loving regards from one artist to another. This aspect is further strengthened by Cecilie Anna’s musical coating of poet James Lyons poem ‘Nightingale’.

  Experimental
  What happens when someone lifts a story and carries it for a new audience? Thus has the storytelling culture grown and unfolded though all time. From campfires to digital platforms, whole traditions have found their shape. And it is with song as it is with history; by interpreting, you keep building upon something while adding something new.

  I’m hardly alone in having thought that this speaks to the very core of music itself because sharing is also building a community, and to say something about where you come from, and where you want to belong. ‘Hommage County’ is a celebration of this constant handover which holds its very own friendship: My song is your song is our song.

  On this record, as previous releases, the expression circles around Cecilie Anna’s voice, but there’s also some new invented sounds which add something playful and experimental.
  Musician (and husband) Vidar Vedå has recorded a bunch of sounds – from toothbrushes to bells and drawers closing – all digitally manipulated by the artist. It’s hard to recognise their origin but they add something enigmatic to the atmosphere of the songs. Significant also is the use of pump organ, something that suits the expression well.

  Cecilie Anna keeps on with her travels in song, thankfully, who knows where it will take her next?

Puls.no - Per Henrik Arnesen

‘Hommage County’ is a tribute to other artist’s voices, a tribute to the dream of
hearing other voices singing your song.

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  But most of all, we get to take part in Cecilie Anna’s musical world; it’s her stories and melodies that are streaming towards you.

  By Per Henrik Arnesen // 05.10.23

  Sometimes it’s lovely just to sit down and listen to comfortable music. Music that brings you into a dreamworld, music that’s grand in its simplicity. That’s what you experience when you sit down and listen to Cecilie Annas newest album, ‘Hommage County’.

  From Stord, Cecilie Anna is an artist who has perhaps gone by too many houses (people), but for this one, just stop and listen. ‘Hommage County’ is her third solo album, and it aligns perfectly with the same atmospheric image as the two before.

  This is not background music; it requires that the listener spends time, time to let the melodies crawl inn. It’s intimate, raw and beautiful, with everything wrapped around little stories. It’s an album which deserves your time and attention.

  Cecilie Anna’s melodic expression and structure is naked, raw and stripped-down, as she explores analogue soundscapes and creates her own, new sounds. Iit’s incredible how much can be done with pump organ and keyboard. And a strong voice. Now and again ‘Hommage County’ sounds both massive and grand, even with so few instruments, moving from a grandiose to a low-key whisper, barely making it’s way from the loudspeaker.

  The album opens magically and beautifully with ‘Lights Low’, before ‘October' starts, a duet with Anne Gjerstad. It’s incredibly strong, the two voices standing up to each other with only piano accompanying. One can feel there’s something in the air.

  ‘Follow You’ - with vocals by Endre Olsen - is one of the few songs where the piano is traded for guitar. What makes it work, is the combination of Cecilie Anna’s wonderful vocals and her melodies, occasionally magical, occasionally raw, occasionally beautiful, all gathered into a fantastic combination.

  ‘Before I Go' has a lot of power to it. The vocal quiver when she raises her voice shows that the simple can often be fantastic, building the foundation for a voyage of moods that are perfect for a dark autumnal evening.

  ‘Low Clouds’ make the thoughts fly towards Low, vibrating with such a deep resonance it sounds almost hurtful, a feeling that travels with you across ‘Hommage’s slowcore, dark notes and sounds.

  ‘Nightingale’ is so precious and raw you’re almost afraid something is going to break as the vocal moves towards you, like porcelain.