''White-Out Conditions'' is the first album by the Norwegian band

Bel Canto , )—with several similar constructions (, , , pronounced in English as )—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing, and whose definitions have often been misunderstood. ''Bel canto'' was not only seen as a vocal technique ...

Critical reception

The album was critically acclaimed and noted for the band's exotic arctic sound, a reviewer in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' writing: "They are very much the product of their environment. Their music is produced by synthesizers and computers. It's a celebration of the archaic, natural order through the use and abuse of modern technology. Notes fall in flurries and sudden, sharp showers, a flute whistles in furious competition with the wind, there's the tinkling of iron bells, the tapping of woodblocks and distant rumblings. Kloeberdanz and Upland are enticingly pure, the former an instrumental, the latter with Anneli's voice wrapped in the rise and rise of quasi-classical motions. It's given a similar treatment elsewhere, but in the title track it's less fragile, calling for the relief of darkness, for moonlight and the accompanying roses and love, yet only finding footprints in the snow. With Baltic Ice-Breaker she scratches, screams and whines as nature again triumphs over man. With Capio it sounds like a celestial choir, as though a host of Ibsen's ghosts are in the machine. "W-O. C." is not the stuff of movies and dreams. It's a direct translation of a daily reality. A frozen exotica."

Track listing

#"Blank Sheets" – 4:15 #"Dreaming Girl" – 3:05 #"Without You" – 4:04 #"Capio" – 2:23 #"Agassiz" – 3:53 #"Kloeberdanz" – 3:02 #"White-Out Conditions" – 4:10 #"Baltic Ice-Breaker" – 4:45 #"Upland" – 7:02 #"Chaideinoi" – 3:29 Sometimes misspelled "Chadeinoi" or "Chaidenoi" on several CD covers, the track " Chaideinoi" appeared for the first time on the 1988 CD re-issue

Single

#"Blank Sheets" – 3:40 #"Chaideino" - 3:25

Musicians

Anneli Drecker Anneli Marian Drecker (born 12 February 1969, in Tromsø, Norway) is a Norwegian singer and actress from the city of Tromsø. She is the frontwoman for the dream pop band Bel Canto. Life and career Drecker's father Peter, a German from Biele ...

- vocals, synthesizer * Nils Johansen - mandolin, flute, bass, synthesizer, programming *

Geir Jenssen Geir Aule Jenssen (born 30 May 1962)Thompson, Dave (2000) ''Alternative Rock'', Miller Freeman, , p.197-198 is a Norwegian electronic musician and composer who records as Biosphere. A resident of Tromsø within the Arctic Circle, Jenssen is well ...

- synthesizer, programming Also credited: *

Marc Hollander Marc Hollander is a Belgian musician, producer and creator of the independent record label, Crammed Discs. Hollander is the leader of the Belgian avant-rock group Aksak Maboul, which he founded in 1977 with Vincent Kenis. Aksak Maboul first rel ...

- woodwinds

References

1987 debut albums Bel Canto (band) albums Nettwerk Records albums Crammed Discs albums {{1980s-electronic-album-stub