Bella Union 20th Anniversary @ OSLO Hackney feat. Will Stratton, Pavo Pavo, Mammút – live music review
‘Icelandic powerhouse’: Mammút brought the night’s proceedings to a close. Photograph courtesy of the artist
In 2009, Bella Union founder Simon Raymonde admitted during an interview with Matt Bristow of Cherry Red Records, that when he started the label he had absolutely no confidence in his ability to make it a success.
Having had a poor relationship with his own labels as a member of the Cocteau Twins, and no contacts with which to get the business off the ground, it was a rocky start for Raymonde.
Twenty years after its conception and you would assume Raymonde’s fears have been assuaged. Over the past two decades, some of the industry’s most established indie acts have turned up on the Bella Union roster, including Flaming Lips, Father John Misty, John Grant and Mercury Rev, alongside a conveyer belt of next best things.
Their acts have appeared in every venue from the back rooms of restaurants to the Royal Albert Hall, and the label itself has scooped Music Week’s Independent Label of the Year Award no less than four times.
Since 1997, Bella Union has made its name nurturing a diverse range of new talent. The line-up for the label’s anniversary tour is therefore
suitably eclectic.
Easing the audience in is Will Stratton, a singer-songwriter from California. Stratton’s album Rosewood Almanac, released in May, was his first for the label. Stratton is that breed of songwriter that can build to the breakers of an orchestra with just himself and his guitar.
His setlist comprises tracks from Rosewood Almanac, like the contemplative ‘Some Ride’, beside those from Stratton’s five other full-length releases, like the wistful country folk of ‘If You Wait Long Enough’ from 2012 album Post-Empire.
Next up is Pavo Pavo. Debut album Young Narrator In The Breakers, released last year, proved that this group of classically trained musicians were anything but traditional. Somewhere between the Baroque pop of Julia Holter and Air’s romantic electronica, the Brooklyn quintet like to play fast and loose with both tempo and volume, wandering from soft, lilting intros into disco breaks and synthetic string interludes.
At times the set feels like an exercise in the catastrophic defeat of audience expectation as even the lullaby opening of new track, ‘Goldenrod’ devolves into a grandiose drum-heavy finale.
Rounding off the show is Icelandic powerhouse Mammút. Formed almost as long ago as Bella Union, the five-piece, who won the Icelandic Music Award for Best Album back in 2014 for third album Komdu til mín svarta systir, seem incongruous inside the Oslo.
Lead singer Kata Mogensen flashes red-painted palms at the audience as the band thrash through the first songs of their set. After throwing herself around the stage, bent double, shrieking lyrics in the microphone, Mogensen returns to an upright position, breathless, to introduce her band and offer a word thanks to Simon Raymonde and the rest of Bella Union. The title track from forthcoming album Kinder Versions gets an airing, building from stark slow-burner to a resounding refrain.
The album, which will be the band’s fourth, is due out in July, and if anthemic, distortion-heavy set-closer ‘We Tried Love’ is any indication, it looks set to be a powerful new record.
For a label that started its life on unstable footing, Bella Union has made itself an indisputable force within the industry. There should be no more doubt in Raymonde’s mind that his business management skills are up to par, from what the past twenty years have shown, they could see him through for
another forty.