Best known as the singer, composer, and arranger fronting dream pop outfit
Bel Canto,
Anneli Drecker has an astonishing range of credits. She is a noteworthy actress in film and on-stage, and has collaborated with artists from
Jah Wobble and
Hector Zazou to
DJ Krush,
Ketil Bjornstad, and
a-ha. She also spent a decade working in the studio and touring with
Röyksopp.
Rocks & Straws is her third solo album, and her first in a decade. Issued by Rune Grammofon,
Rocks & Straws may be the first of her recordings to capture her own musical vision so grandly and precisely.
Drecker composed nine tunes for the lyrical poems of the late Norwegian literary polymath Arvid Hanssen, which were translated by artist and writer Roy-Frode Løvlan and recorded in her hometown of Tromsø, Norway. Singing, programming, and playing piano and organ, she is accompanied by guitarist
Eivind Aarset, bassist Ole Vegard Skauge, and alternate drummers Rune Arnesen and
Erland Dahlen, and strings from
the Arctic Philharmonic. Her old
Bel Canto bandmate Nils Johansen adds programming assistance on "Alone," the set's opening track.
Drecker recorded most of this music live in the studio and did only minimal dubbing later. The topics in these songs are about nature and the often curious place of human beings within its grandeur.
Drecker brings the striking beauty of Hanssen's poems to life, celebrating the desolate, unforgiving majesty of the wild region of northern Norway he wrote about. The warmth of her arrangements and melodies contrast with the lyrical subject matter, making them as contradictory as the human heart. With its lush strings, sweeping cymbals, and reverb-laden ambience, "Circulating Light" presents ethereal, gloriously illustrated pop. Her voice, no less evocative than it was in the '80s, still possesses its full range, sweeping and swooping through the mix. "Fisherman's Blues" places her alto out front as slow, blissfully articulated piano chords and strings color the spaces between the words. This is no musical still life, it's an aural portrait captured in the present moment, which reveals a picaresque narrative that evokes myriad emotions simultaneously. A Maori chorale from New Zealand chants through the foreground of "Ocean's Organ," which weds grandiloquent pop (think
Cocteau Twins circa
Blue Bell Knoll) to vivid classical crossover. (That this isn't the album's last track is a testament to
Drecker's focus and confidence.) But there's so much more, such as "Waiting for a Boat," which is every bit as ambitious as
Kate Bush on
The Sensual World, but more immediate, warmer, and yes, more accessible. No one need be familiar with
Drecker's source inspirations on
Rocks & Straws to appreciate the vision on offer. This is elegant, pristine, deeply felt pop music of the highest order, offered as a heart-rending homage to place and poet. ~ Thom Jurek