albertine

I finally bought Brooke Fraser's "Albertine" album on iTunes this week, even though I've had the single for the past couple of months, ever since I was impressed by Brooke's live performance of the song @ the Hillsong Conference in Orlando.

I tend to be really skeptical of new up-and-coming female artists for some reason. But Brooke's voice and talent for songwriting blew me away. More than that--her honesty and storytelling ability seemed to draw every one into her experience. I become more and more convinced that the story is the thing that invites everybody in. It seems like a darn near impossible thing to maintain a down-to-earth attitude in front a crowd of thousands and thousands of people unless it comes from some place real. But that's what Brooke's story struck me as: earnest and real and honest.

The album overall is pretty good, but the title track is still my favorite. Even though the song is about Rwanda and a response to what happened in 1994, the song brought me back to Tanzania, with its soft insistence that I should "tell the world where I've been."