After many delays, due to other pressing issues in life, I get to present tonights dark dose as the first post with an image. It seems these pressing issues in life cause stress which accumulates with age, leading often times to an exhausted mind and body. In order to recharge and recover from this cycle, something soothing is in order. My admiration for the music of Norway’s Bel Canto began five years ago when I was in desperate need for private contemplative music to sooth the mind. A friend recommended the album “Shimmering Warm & Bright” and I knew right away it was something special.

Bel Canto is private music. I would never crank one of their albums and attempt to be social. Rather, it is music I exclusively listen to alone, always with lights dim and often with headphones.

Bel Canto consists of Anneli Drecker (vocals) and Nils Johansen (producer, programming). They produce a hybrid of avantgarde pop, post-rock and world music with quite a bit of piano and electronic programming. If you are open minded enough to not be frightened away by the last sentence, you shall be rewarded. While Bel Canto have received much acclaim from critics and from their native Norway — this is not the most accessible music I’ve ever heard. Drecker’s vocals are angelic, comforting and for lack of a better word, beautiful. Multiple vocal layers soar over often times extremely ethereal music — a mix of delayed guitars, sparse piano and melodic electronic elements. Bel Canto are particularly skilled when executing their more melancholic and contemplative side. I certainly favor tracks of this nature more than the upbeat pop oriented material.

I enjoy more songs off “Shimmering Warm & Bright” than their latest “Dorothy’s Victory”, but thankfully they did not completely abandon the introspective side I loved from the beginning. Such as the title track contribution for tonight, which clearly illustrates these qualities.

Sadly, I’ve heard Bel Canto are no more — that Anneli Drecker is now exclusively a solo artist. If this is the case, I can at least be thankful they created many songs important to me. Songs I will continue to share the night with, alone.

Dorothy’s Victory (Download)
Bel Canto (Artist)
Purchase CD