Andrea Von Kampen - Sister Moon (2024)

Sister Moon, Andrea von Kampen’s third record, is influenced by two complex and seemingly disparate topics: Saint Francis of Assisi and Richard Powers’ 2018 novel The Overstory. Despite the randomness of those influences she manages to create a beautiful record with surprisingly relatable themes.

The folk record begins with the airy acoustic title track “Sister Moon,” a song using music as a backdrop to – as one of the lyrics says, ‘tell a good story, change a person’s mind.’ “You can yell at people all day long about how the world’s on fire and we need them to help now, but that won’t change them. Tell them a story of beauty, nature, loss and change and that might help to shift their consciousness,” she says. And there are plenty of stories tucked into these songs.

Among the standout tracks here are the upbeat “Cedar Street” and the delicate piano ballad “Cottonwood,” two beautiful, catchy tracks that are among the best in von Kampen’s catalog. Her voice on the latter is astonishingly striking – vulnerable and confident at the same time. The fact that both songs include trees in their title is more than a coincidence as Powers’ novel – one of the album’s central influences – is about nine different people who have their own profound experiences with trees, who find each other and fight to try and end deforestation. Elsewhere, the minimalistic “Robin” and “August” are just as strong.