“My first experience with vinyl was through my parents’ vinyl collection. I used to sit in the living room while listening to Dolly Parton, Roger Whitaker, and Olivia Newton-John and sing along in my gibberish-English. Later, I got a vinyl player for my 11th birthday and I remember putting in orders to my mum and dad as soon as I heard something interesting on the radio.”
“So I had a cool collection with Nina Hagen, Grace Jones, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine” and of course ABBA and Michael Jackson. But my coolest vinyl was the score for the German movie Christiane F/Wir Kinder aus Bahnhof Zoo by David Bowie and Brian Eno. We had seen the movie in my class, as a part of an anti-drug campaign. It was such a sad film about this girl turning into a junkie. All my friends fell in love with her too-handsome, bad-influence boyfriend in the movie while I…fell in love with David Bowie and his songs.
But having said that, one of the coolest vinyl collection in town was my big brother’s. He was a fanatic record collector who used to work as a postman on the side of his studies to save up money to travel to London and get the latest and coolest music. He and his best friend went over and filled up their DJ suitcase with fresh vinyl once a month. We had two really cool independent record shops in my arctic hometown Tromsoe, in the north of Norway, but my brother wanted to get a hold of the music before the shops—and he did. He was obsessed with getting the entire BONG series of Depeche Mode. So, already at the age of 11, I was introduced to bands like Soft Cell, OMD, Blancmange, DAF, New Order, Psychic TV, Joy Division, Yazoo, Smiths, Diamanda Galas, Fad Gadget and such, while my friends listened to Whitney Houston and Bananarama.
My brother used to make a compilation of all the coolest songs and copy them onto a cassette tape for me. I had a Walkman back then and I remember walking to school in the pitch dark polar nights in winter, humming and singing to Cabaret Voltaire’s “Sensoria” with frost smoke streaming from my breath. A real gloomy teenager I was and only 13!
At that time, in the ’80s, a cassette tape like this was like your own playlist on Spotify and if you really liked someone, you made a compilation for them. And this took time, I mean real time, like the length of all-the-songs-put-together-after-one-another-for-a-compilation kind of time. Real, real time.
But the main reason that my brother copied these cassette tapes for me, besides showing affection towards his little sister, was to make sure that I would stay clear of his precious vinyl… But every time he went away, I could not resist sneaking into his room, carefully unwrapping the vinyl from their covers, gently and hopefully not with too trembling hands setting the needle—on them all to enjoy a moment of musical freedom before I put them back in the shelves where they belonged. And by all means; leave no trace!
My brother used to invite his cool punk friends to come over and listen to the latest music he had bought in London while I was rehearsing upstairs on my piano in the living room. Finally, at the age of 15, I was allowed to join him and his black dressed punk friends.
One of them was a drummer in a ska punk band called “Peder x-em” and I had a crush on him, partly because he looked a bit like David Bowie. His band used to rehearse in the basement of my school in the afternoons. I used to hide there after school time and eavesdrop by the door. The singer and bass player in that band was actually Nils Johansen, who has been my musical partner in Bel Canto since Christmas 85-86.
Anyways, to make a long story short, this cool punk drummer was the one who introduced me to Nils Johansen and Geir Jenssen’s music. He played me their demo cassette tape and told me they where looking for a singer.
So that’s how Bel Canto was born. And no, he did not play the drums in our band, to my big disappointment, but yes, he became my boyfriend and later on the father of my eldest daughter. So? Without vinyl, especially my brother’s vinyl, so many things in my life would not have happened.”
—Anneli Drecker
Röyksopp and Bel Canto vocalist, Anneli Drecker’s solo full length release, Rocks & Straws is in stores now via Rune Grammofon. On vinyl.
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PHOTO: STIAN ANDERSEN
