For some bands you would travel the unit of the universe but to see them be once. Bel Canto is one of those bands, for me at least. Anneli Drecker, Nils Johansen and Geir Jenssen (aka Bleep and Biosphere) have left us pearls of heavenly voices electropop that today is very seldom, if not unexistent (See Bel Canto on iTunes). I think that I lost their last Belgian concert back in 1996 because of an exam German which I did not wish to jazz up by passing out the dark before.
Kinda like a catch 22 situation I'd get out later since Bel Canto would never visit Belgum again. Years passed by and I followed the calling of the 3 members, interviewed them when a new (solo) album got released but that was it. Bel Canto occasionally took breaks in place for Drecker to follow a solo career and to perform with other bands and artists, as good as acting in films and theater plays. Nils Johansen composed music for movie and tv as good as worked and performed with his former band, Vajas. Despite these hiatuses, Bel Canto continued to do live, without Jenssen that is. Until June 2010 when I got news that Bel Canto was to reunite for a particular performance at the Dognvill festival in their hometown Troms september 4th 2010. While I couldn't take that concert, it became clear that 2 more concerts would be added, Oslo and Trondheim. All in Norway. We meet the circle in a hotel in Oslo at noon, the day after their concert in the Rockefeller Music Hall venue in the eye of the city. They seem kinda knacked and will go to Trondheim the same day to make for the 3rd concert. This has been the band's second show since their reunion show, 21 days after Geir Jenssen left the circle to follow a solo carreer. (By Bernard Van Isacker, Photos by Petra Rnnholm and JanRonald Stange) SL: The why for the reunion stroke me as odd, it was announced out of the blue. AD: The Dognvill festival you think? They really asked us 2 days ago if we could play there. It was their idea. They are old friends of ours, musicians. I was just moving up to Troms when one of the guys asked me as we were all the trinity of us living back in Troms, so he wondered whether they could do a reunion concert. So it was their thought from the real start. We didn't really want other people to get up with the mind and say it was their idea to think about it. We precious to do it because we really wanted to act together. That's why it took us 2 years. We didn't need a festival only to pay us to get back together, the mind needed to mature and leave us a reason.
SL: Why didn't you guys come up with that mind in the foremost place? AD: I have been living in Oslo for the preceding 20 days and I haven't had any touch with Geir at all. Just through friends and his ex-wife. He was traveling so often and I have been living in Oslo. Of course Nils and I have been seeing eachother quite a lot. And so I stirred up to Troms and was asked to add to a compilation by Hommage Records, called "Maskindans - Norsk synth 1980-1988". And that's when Geir and I started to mail eachother. Funny actually as he lived just 50 meters down the street, but ok we started to mail eachother. We met while we were skiing there and were talking around the old demos from the eighties. We observed some jewelry that was lying there, it gave actually a kick to heed to the material.SL: Was the cover for the compilation,"Flowerbeds", originally meant to be on the "Birds of passage" album? AD: Geir used it later on for his Bleep project. We weren't too happy about it back then. You know, there are a lot of songs that we haven't released. I've done so many concert and commission pieces, 3 of them, with 12 to 16 songs which never got released. I'm so used to thing not being released especially when you are on a major record label. That's really frustrating. Geir is the golden one he can simply release his stuff, but we have been kind of restricted.SL: Are you still signed to EMI Norway? AD: Vaguely. I am not happy with the narrow and they are not happy with the press and we simply don't need to keep under that contract. So it has to be renogiated. If they don't wish the block I wish to put out I'm free to go elsewhere. SL: That is for you personal carreer, but Bel Canto is free yes? AD: We got fired. NJ: We receive no more obligations towards EMI now. The declaration ended. It's a license deal we hold with them, we do all of the product and don't experience an artist deal with them.SL: Did you never think of selfreleasing? NJ: That's the obvious thing to do now for known bands as the book industry is altogether different now. AD: But we are not business people so we require someone on board who can dispense with all the phonecalls and administration. NJ: Right now we are simply thinking around the creative part. There are different ways to cover things now though.SL: But support to you and Geir. AD: Well, then Geir and I worked on medicine for a theatre play, "Hamsun.s Fever" based on the poem "Feberdigte" from 1904 by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun-s. (Editor's note: at this moment Geir Jenssen arrives and joins us)SL: Hi Geir, Anneli just explained how you both got back into contact with eachother. Why all this musical silence between you 2 during all this years? GJ: We were only too busy with musical projects you know.SL: The last material was really completely redone for this show, straight to the essence of the songs with but you 3 on stage. It doesn't sound like you did this overnight. GJ: Two nights you mean (laughs). AD: We frequently use different musicians for the gigs as well so the sound always changes. But yesterday yes. our percussionist was there last night at the Rockefeller show and he has been performing with us for 20 days and now it was only us 3 (laughs). GJ: We trashed all of the old sounds and used new ones, more or less. We just kept the midifiles. AD: Geir actually even found his old synthesizer in his loft. GJ: I found back my old Commodore computer from 1983 and it still worked. I inserted the floppies and found back all the midifiles and recorded them into a Mac. AD: And you Nils, you had to get back all your Akai samples.SL: Even in the beginning age when you performed the songs have never been that stripped down to be honest. Is that your influence Geir? GJ: It was my idea yes. I just kicked out everything (laughs). NJ: I was allowed to save my guitar though (smiles).SL: Approaching the stuff so radically, even the stuff that was released after you left Bel Canto after the 1989 album "Birds of passage". I suppose you guys must be really trusting eachother. NJ: You get to trust eachother. We tried out a few tracks from the more recent period and pretended like Geir was yet in the ring when those songs were made. That's how we were thinking. AD: It did take some time to grow with Geir that we had to run a strain like "Shimmering, warm and shining" as well though. GJ: When they played the stuff to me I was like: 'what would occur if we would take away this, or that.' And we took it out and so more and more. In the end we only had the cycle and the basic metal drums. It can well be overproduced if you meet all the elements plus my elements as well.
SL: But back to those ethnic elements, how did you reconcile both your coldness Geir and the warm ethnic elements that Nils and Anneli put into their material? AD: Negociations I'd say. We didn't represent the ethnic songs yesterday but we were invited to do this. SL: I noticed 4 new tracks in the set. GJ: Yes, correct, we have been running on a few new tracks for which might hopefully be a new electronic album.SL: Hopefully? Nils, are you ok with that? NJ: Sure, it's always well to fill up together and get some mindtwisting things done. It's a good synergy. SL: Geir, when you left Bel Canto, what was the first picture you had when you heard the ""Shimmering, warm and bright album", the initiative produced without you? GJ: I did care some of the tracks but I didn't like so often the ethnic elements. Like the percussionist. I'm not so into that. SL: Your own solo material Geir is so very clean, clinical and arctic as I would say. Nils and Anneli, you are both obviously the more ethnic influenced musicians in the band. AD: I know to sing ethnical songs and have been traveling so much about the book and have been listening to Arabic rai music and Turkish folk music. As a singer it's often more interesting and a way to developing your vocal instrument. That's why I came a bit late because in the stock they had some Indian music and I was listening. That's where all the techniques originate from. And personally I see it much easier to have songs in 7/8 beat than in 8/8 beat. It's often more hard to sing simple and straight. When I was 14 days old I took singing lessons but my instructer refused to teach me because he thought I was an awful singer and could never get a singer. So in my mind I made up I had to wander and try and get a way. I had this break in my voice, it was breaking, a sound change. I managed to get my own technique to talk but in my mind I nevertheless was saying to myself: 'you're not a proper singer!' (laughs) I cannot really sing straight like christmas carrols. But also I observed then that I would start singing my own songs and not somebody else's. SL: Except in Idol. AD: I didn't sing anyone else's song on there?SL: Yes you did, I saw this report which you sang together with Margeret Berger, the girl you were coaching in Idol. It was Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush' "Don't make up" for the the show 'Idol gir tilbake'. You literally sung her below the table. (See the picture below) AD: Ah yes. No, she is well you know, she was my favourite (laughs). I'm actually meeting her today. You know, people normally don't get impressed by a low voice, they get impressed by the feminity not by the voice. People were also impressed by the call I did with Ryksopp, "Wundering heights". For me this is more an imitation, it's how I learned to talk from my big brother's record collection he bought in London. If it weren't for him I wouldn't be there now where I am because I had this terrible taste of music. He played like Joy Division, DAF, Psychic TV. No, Cocteau Twins came a bit later, but I started to mind to people who talk with subdued voices and I noticed that you can actually sing like that. Before I was listening to Whitney Houston, terrible stuff like that, and I was like (and she starts singing) 'Oh I wish to dancing with somebody', I couldn't sing that at all, it cracked up my voice. Other bands that I got to hear this way were Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music where the singing was very easy and smooth. Later on I got to learn Cocteau Twins. I was so impressed by the solid legal and I honestly thought this were two persons, I couldn't trust that one individual had this form of range.
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