Andrea von Kampen to Release New Album 'Sister Moon'

Andrea von Kampen's third solo album, Sister Moon (March 15), continues to showcase the singer-songwriter's captivating melodies and introspective storytelling. Out today, the album's title track is a stunning introduction to the collection's themes, focusing on climate change and the connectedness of nature. 

“I wrote 'Sister Moon' after talking to locals at Newport Folk Festival a few years ago,” von Kampen says. “The festival that year had an eerie feeling as we all social distanced and tried to make the best of it, but it felt like every move we made could have a lasting negative impact. I was reminded how little control we have over outcomes and how little control these people have over sea level rising in the coming years, and I wrote this song when I got home.”

Sister Moon was inspired by Richard Powers' “The Overstory,” as well as the teachings of Italian mystic Saint Francis of Assisi. “The Overstory” is a novel about nine different people who have their own profound experiences with trees, who find each other and fight to try and end deforestation. The novel focuses on trees, but also on the impact climate change has on our environment and how humans need to find a better way to live with the earth. Von Kampen reflects on this idea in a more personal way; “August” speaks to all the things future generations will miss: “December's turning white, the Ogallala still high.”

Von Kampen spent the past year working on her new record, getting back to the independent approach to music that she previously yearned for; Sister Moon was recorded in the winter of 2023 by Ben Brodin (Conor Oberst, Justin Townes Earle, First Aid Kit) and arranged by her brother, David von Kampen.

It's not surprising that Sister Moon pulls from the stories of characters who meet in the Midwest. Growing up in the Great Plains of America, von Kampen has a deep connection with the land of the prairie. Though many people think of Nebraska as mostly flat land for livestock, it was the birthplace of Arbor Day in the late 1800s. 

“I was lucky enough to grow up in a yard with two massive cottonwood trees, which are mostly not planted in city limits anymore because they're messy and a pain, but these old beauties had been planted 100 years earlier and were the tallest trees in the neighborhood,” she says—the trees would later inspire her song “Cottonwoods.” 

“As a child, I felt connected to these trees, we hung a swing from one of them and I'd spend all summer out there," she continues. “After we moved from the house,  they had both been chopped down; I was so sad I cried. We share a quarter of our genes with trees: they use scents to talk with each other, release chemicals that make us feel better when we walk past them, and we need them now more than ever to help control our climate.”

As the ideas inspired by “The Overstory” began to take form, von Kampen was also starting a journey into Franciscan mysticism. St. Francis of Assisi was a 12th-century mystic and friar who loved animals, nature, and caring for the planet. The alternative orthodoxy of St. Francis of Assisi opened a door into an entirely new way of seeing Christianity for von Kampen. 

“As I was reading 'The Overstory,' I was challenged in some of the ideas I grew up learning,” she says. “So much of being raised in a Christian faith is focusing on the world we live in being sinful and failing and waiting for someplace else that will be perfect. The more I read 'The Overstory,' the more I realized that what was wrong with our earth was our own selfish destruction. We're ruining the beauty all around us, and it's our job in the here and now to help the planet. Saint Francis was one of the few voices in the Christian sphere that was lending a different perspective and an emphasis on the here and now, taking care of the living beings in front of us.” 

Saint Francis was so deeply connected with the world around him that he would refer to the moon as his sister and the sun as his brother. The animals around him were his family, and everything was alive and bursting with divine matter. 

“I wanted this album to reflect the conscious shift I felt over the past few years and calling it Sister Moon felt right," von Kampen says. “In the song 'Wonder' there's a lyric that says, 'Let's tell a good story, change a person's mind,' and that's the goal of this album.” 

"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 continues. 

Deemed “a fine singer with guitar work reminiscent of the cult hero Nick Drake” by the New York Times, ​​von Kampen has released a handful of EPs, her independent debut album Old Country in 2019 and That Spell with Fantasy Records in 2021.

She has shared the stage with an impressive array of artists, including The Tallest Man on Earth, Trampled by Turtles, Watchhouse, Punch Brothers, The Wood Brothers, Bonny Light Horseman, Darlingside, Lief Vollebekk, Dead Horses, and many others, and has established herself on the road while playing renowned music festivals such as Newport Folk Festival and the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. 

Photo by Analise Schrader

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