Hopes for a "Rush" 

By Torkel F. Berstøl

Bel Canto is back. The single "Images" is already released, and on Monday
comes the Tromsø-duo's fourth album in 11 years. The question is if Anneli
Marian Drecker and Nils Johansen this time manages to fulfill the
expectations of internatonal success. 

Bel Canto's history is filled with success, but is also suitable as cold
water to freeze the veins of Norwegians with a popstar-dream in their
belly. At least if one expects success comparable to that of a-ha. The
albums have each sold steadily between 10 0000 and 120000 copies
worldwide, but the reviewer-created expectations of million-sales have not
yet come true.  "Rush" is produced by the duo itself, but they have gotten
help both to the production, the recording and the song-writing by
Torbjørn Brundtland, another guy from Tromsø, whose name is first and
foremost associated with the technoprojects Alanïa, Those N orwegians and
Drum Island. Bel Canto needed a new element and found their new Geir
Jenssen. It is striking how the trend of using old equipment among
techno-musicians has given "Rush" a sound that is closer to the band's two
first releases. The album is r ecorded in their own studio in Oslo, "In
Zenith" (from the song on Magic Box). As on their two Spellemann-awarded
albums "Magic Box" and "Shimmering, Warm & Bright", Ulf Holand has done
the mixing. After a nomad-existence between record companies in the 9 0's,
Bel Canto has now started their own company, and the album is released via
a licence to EMI in Norway. 

Arctic credibility

The foundation for Bel Canto was laid already in 1985 when Geir Jenssen
and Nils Johansen saw Anneli Marian Drecker sing in a Tromsø-band,
"Missing Links". Geir Jenssen had released a cassette under the name
"E-man" in 1984, and Nils Johansen played in th e group "Peder Exem". The
three of them made demos and sent them to 12 labels around the world. In
1987, their debut-album "White-Out Conditions" was released by Crammed
Discs in Belgium. They got labelled as "arctic" already then.  "The north
of Norway doesn't have its own folk-music. We have tried to describe a
folk-music with a starting-point in the nature and the climate which have
influenced the people there", Anneli said in an interview with Nye Takter
in 1988 about their arctic, musical starting-point.  "We try to imagine
how eskimos would have made this music if they had equipment for it. We
can't recreate music from the stone-age or other primitive societies, but
we can try to create moods that remind about it", Geir Jenssen said in the
same interview. 

In 1990, the follow-up "Birds Of Passage" was released, which displayed
them in a somewhat lighter side. After this album, Geir Jenssen left the
band in order to concentrate on the more electronical soloprojects Bleep
and later Biosphere. 

Belgian hindrance

In 1992, they released "Shimmering, Warm & Bright" which became a success
in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. Then, it also turned out
that the contract with Crammed Discs eventually had become a hindrance for
the band, and after "Shimmering..  .", they negotiated themselves out of
the contract. 
	-"We saw it as if Crammed used Bel Canto's success as a means of
selling the rest of their catalogue" comments Per Eirik Johansen, their
former manager who was central in the process that gave the band a place
in the spotlight.  In the following period, Bel Canto became involved in a
number of prestigious assignments, with, among others, commissioned pieces
for the Olympics at Lillehammer and for the opening of PeTre. Anneli
Drecker participated on one of the albums of legendary bassist Jah Wobble. 
And Nils and Anneli participated on the project "Music Channel" together
with musicians from Palestina and Israel in connection with the
Oslo-agreement. But the follow-up for Shimmering was often delayed. Not
least after Anneli Drecker had a baby with common-law husband and
technomusician Per Martinsen, known among other names as Mental Overdrive. 
In the end, they decided upon a contract with Lava Records, an under-label
of the American label Warner, and released Magic Box early in 1996.
Problems trickled in here too. Bel Canto's first single from Magic Box,
"Rumour", wasn't a commercial success, b ut just as the next single was on
its way to the market, the Lava-label went down. Thereby, they lost the
chance to revitalize the album, and Bel Canto and their manager saw that
the best thing to do would be to negotiate out of the contract and find
yet another record-company. They made other experiences too, and comes
with an indirect warning to the Norwegian band Babelfish, which has a
contract with Atlantic in USA.
	- "Warner Atlantic in USA has an insufficient system for backing
up their artists on the European market", Per Eirik, who chose the job as
director for Virgin Norway instead of continuing as Bel Canto's manager,
says. 
	- "But it twitches in my fingers now that Bel Canto is coming with
a new album again", he says, and confesses that he would love to be with
the team this time too. He still sees the potential, and thinks that the
whole thing depends on one single hit. Then, a rush of people might storm
the record-shops when the album comes on Monday, February 23rd.