Artist:     Ana Egge

Album:     Between Us

Label:     Story Sound

Release Date:     9.17. 2021

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Rather remarkably, this is singer-songwriter Ana Egge’s 12th album, and it may well be her most intriguing yet. The combination of Egge’s intimate, breathy voice and her roots-folk songs with a backing unit that boasts impressive jazz resumés is a one that’s rarely, if ever, heard. She took the mantra “each album should be different” seriously. Apparently, though the album has no real Celtic qualities, nine of the eleven songs on Between Us were born out of two-hour FaceTime songwriting sessions with Irish singer-songwriter Mick Flannery. Egge also added another element to her songwriting by capturing in a journal the many songs and melodies that were appearing in her dreams.—at the root of many of these songs. Finally, she and her producer, multi-instrumentalist Lorenzo Wolff, made a concerted effort to include musicians of diversity and enlisted a new group of artists, most of whom hail from the contemporary jazz scene.

Except for backing vocalist J. Hoard, with whom Egge had worked previously, the core unit includes drummer Corey Fonville, known for his work with Butcher Brown and with Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, bassist Michael Isvara Montgomery and guitarist/steel guitarist Jonny Lam, from the African psych-funk band Sinkane. Flautist Anh Phung she had seen performing in a bluegrass band and pianist/keyboardist Jon Cowherd is a key cog in the Brian Blade Fellowship. Trumpeter Alphonso Horne is a bandleader and sideman in several fusion jazz groups. Saxophonist Sonny Step plays across several genres while trombonist Darius Christian has also played with numerous pop acts.

To be fair, all the sounds are not completely new: Egge used synths and horns on White Tiger and Is It the Kiss but this one has fewer acoustic instruments than any of her prior offerings. Blaring horns introduce the opener “Wait a Minute” as Fonville and Montgomery lay down a funky beat over which her distinctive voice and the horns sway melodically. “The Machine” is more stripped-down and without horns as Egge holds us spellbound singing about her mechanic partner, cleverly injecting this phrase – “Hear that talk of global warmin’ electric is the future comin’” as the ‘next machine’. Some unique sounds occur on “You Hurt Me” where the percussion/drum-like sound is produced by Phung’s flute.

“We Let the Devil” is steeped in melancholy; Egge keeps building the drama, buoyed by the full sound of seven musicians as she implores reconciliation in the last line. “Don’t Come Around” is just a bit too abstract, but she recovers quickly in the wistful “Be Your Drug.” There’s a moral message in the infectious standout “Lie, Lie, Lie,” likely inspired by the faux news and political heads that have been all too prominent recently. Egge finds a driving groove in “Want Your Attention” with its whistling sound effects created by her sever-year-old daughter singing through a $19 echo microphone. The closer, “We Lay Roses” is a solemn eulogy with Horn’s trumpet signaling the taps-like farewell in this impeccably tender tune that frames Egge’s voice beautifully.

Egge deftly navigates the chances she took to deliver a gem of an album, clearly one of her best.

—Jim Hynes