Bearly Queen: Rainbow's End?

lvjcdr010
cd-r, edition of 50

45:43

December 2008

* a bonus track: Summer Song 2007 (Grass Smells Funny) (7:58)

* Rainbow's End? (37:45)

20. November 2008, Oulu, Finland

Fifth album by Bearly Queen in one year! This one is the last of the trilogy released by Luovaja, and definitely the most cohesive one of the lot. The Big Red One brings you a long brooding sound mass to swell in your head until your ears start to bleed and you wake up into a dream with tears of joy in your eyes.

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Bearly Queen's fifth album was made during a few lonely hours in 20. November. On this album BQ continues his experiments with dark atmospheres within minimalistic, yet organic setting.

There's one long track representing the famous BQ sound: slow, murky and muddled. Plus a previously released bonus track with the same attitude, only shorter. This album concludes the color trilogy started with The Infamous Commercial Suicide Album and continued on Hairy Palm Adventures.

Rainbow's End? is maybe the darkest of the three, lacking any lighter moments found on the previous albums. It lulls your mind with not so bright colours. They say there's a treasure at the end of the rainbow but who are "they"?

H. K.

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Bearly Queenin viides albumi syntyi muutaman yksinäisen tunnin aikana 20. marraskuuta. Tällä albumilla BQ jatkaa tummien tunnelmien kokeilujaan minimalististissa vaikkakin orgaanisissa puitteissa.

"Levyn yhdellä pitkällä raidalla kullaan kuuluisaa BQ-saundia: hidasta, hämärää ja hämmentävää. Lisäksi mukana on aiemmin ilmestynyt ja samanhenkinen, tosin lyhyempi, bonusraita. Tämä albumi päättää väritrilogian, jonka aloitti The Infamous Commercial Suicide Album ja jota jatkoi Hairy Palm Adventures.

"Rainbow's End? on kenties tummin näistä kolmesta pidättäytyessään ainoastakaan aiemmilla julkaisuilla kuulluista valoisammista hetkistä. Se tuudittaa kuulijan mielen vähemmän kirkkain värein. On sanottu, että sateenkaareen päässä on aarre – mutta kuka niin on sanonut?

H. K.

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REVIEWS

"Looks like I’m keeping the 'Lengthy Selection' idea alive, seven years down the line – Bearly Queen’s 'Rainbow’s End?' from Luovaja label is 37 minutes long! This is interesting material, though. Towards the end, there is a kind of audio haze… it’s hard to remember that this is a CD, and not some vintage tape! A great mood-setter." (DaveX / Startling Moniker)

*

"Very low rumbles, like distant storm clouds open this two-track CDR. 'Summer Song 2007' is a bonus track, (unusually positioned at the beginning of the album), which embarks on a weathered journey over 8 minutes. Deep sea rumbles with far off metal scrapes that whistle like miniature boats on a tranquil tide of incalculable distance. This is a very minimal drone akin to the descent of a diver, sinking very slowly to the pitch black of the ocean floor.

"'Rainbow’s End' clicks into play just as I open my Yahoo account to see an image of an actual rainbow’s end captured on digital camera – funny, hah?! Similar, very low submerged drones, rusted battleship twisting boughs and snoring whales make up the sonic pallet. This is extremely tranquil music that would work beautifully as a soundtrack to a deep-sea exploration documentary. Obscure and highly elongated melodies can be found on repeat listens, as well as through abandoned concentration, allowing the music to slip past with the watered matter it depicts. Electronics, dial-up tones and general recordings of the aether create further textures to the expansive topography. It really does feel like either slowed down field recordings, or brief performances slowed to a 30minute marathon. There is too little to keep my attention, or to warrant more than a couple of revisits. 4/10" (Peter Taylor / Foxy Digitalis)

*

"Tärkeä osa Bearly Queenin, eli oululaisen Heikki Kippolan, musiikin vetovoimaa on sen uutuudenviehätys. Lumoon liittyy myös tunne siitä, että musiikki on syntynyt ikään kuin päähänpiston saattelemana, mutta samalla kokolailla valmiina. Parin demoluontoisen omakustannelevyn jälkeen ilmestyi vuoden 2008 aikana pienlevymerkki Luovajan julkaisemana Väritrilogia, eli kolmen cdr-levyn sarja The Infamous Commercial Suicide Album, Hairy Palm Adventures ja Rainbow's End?. Viimeksi mainittu on ansiokkaasti esitellyt Bearly Queenin tuoretta näkökulmaa samplejen käyttöön. Näiden albumien musiikki on koostettu, ilmeisen yksinkertaisin digitaalisin välnein, proge- ynnä muilta levyiltä napsituista pätkistä ja tilkkutäkkimäisesti muokattu karhean kauniiksi äänimaisemiksi.

"– –

"Joulukuussa ilmestynyt Rainbow's End? vaikuttaa näihin kahteen levyyn verrattuna hätäisesti rakennetulta ja jokseenkinhahmottomalta kokonaisuudelta. Levy ei oikein jaksa pitää yllä mielenkiintoa koko kestonsa ajan. Tästä kauneusvirheestä huolimatta on Bearly Queen Väritrilogioineen ollut vuoden 2008 kiinnostavimpia tulokkaita, jolta sopii mielenkiinnolla odottaa uusia tuotoksia." (Ville Forss / Kulttuurivihkot 3/2008)

*

"Kolmannella albumillaan Bearly Queen sitten lunastaa sen mitä edelliset kiekot ovat antaneet odottaa. Kolme varttia minimalistista ambientia, Moljebka Pvlsen hillityimpien teosten hengessä. Kiekon avaa sen "bonusraita", 8-minuuttinen Summer Song 2007 (Grass Smells Funny), joka on lähes pelkkää suhinaa pienin sävyvaihteluin.

"Nimiraita ei sekään hirveästi muutu, mutta ei se missään tapauksessa ole tippakaan tylsä, ainakaan tottuneemmalle ambientin kuuntelijalle. Kolketta ja pulputuksia on juuri sopivassa määrin, että teos virtaa koko ajan eteenpäin. Tällaista äänimaisemaa on kuultu lukuista kerrat ennekin, mutta se ei tarkoita, etteikö tästä nauttisi paljon.

"Erittäin hyvää, vaikkakin tavallisehkoa, synkkää ambientia." (Jiituomas / Kuolleen musiikin yhdistys)

*

"On its third album, Bearly Queen does that which the preceding records promised. Three quarters of an hour filled with minimalist ambient, in the vein of Moljebka Pvlse’s most restrained works. The disc starts with its "bonus track", the eight-minute Summer Song 2007 (Grass Smells Funny), which is basically just wind-like sounds with tiny tone changes. The title track doesn’t contain that many changes either. Yet it’s by no means boring, especially to an experienced listener of ambient. There’s just the right amount of bubbling and clanging to keep the whole thing flowing onwards. This sort of soundscape has been heard several times before, of course, but that does not mean it’s any less enjoyable because of that.

"Very good, if somewhat ordinary, dark ambient." (Jiituomas / Kuolleen musiikin yhdistys)

*

"Surrealistic voyages and abstract forms of colorful shapes will emanate brilliant textures over your mind in this expressive cohesion of limitless reality created by the Finnish Bearly Queen, a drone ambient / experimental structure which seems to elevate itself over its own existence. This fifth album, "Rainbows End"", is the third Bearly Queen release by fellow Fin's Luovaja Records. This is the final album in the trilogy, and without a doubt one of the best ones in the musical career of Bearly Queen. So to explore the paradise found within "Rainbow's End?", you must first enter the deep conceptual elements in Bearly Queen themselves.

"This CD-R is released in a very limited edition of only 50 copies and includes two musical expressions over nearly 40 minutes of eerie drone ambient with many diverse elements and facets surrounding both tracks. Bearly Queen's fifth album was made during a few lonely hours on the 20th of November, 2008. On this album, Bearly Queen continues his experiments with dark atmospheres within minimalistic, yet organic settings. A dreaming magical space explored by this enigmatic act shows us through this release a part of the latent potential and creativity Bearly Queen possesses when developing in the fields of drone music.

"The first track is "Summer Song 2007 (Grass Smells Funny) with almost 8 minutes of explorative drone sounds which increase its strong nature with the passage of time. Each sound is carefully processed and each element is suggestive. The second and final track is "Rainbow's End?", a very long song with almost 38 minutes of pure eerie dismal atmospheres with an enigmatic touch as well as abstract elements which crawl from the drone soundscapes and generate diverse elemental forces. These forces are connected at their highest levels with mushroom trips and psychedelic exploration of realms under the influence of such marvelous substances.

"The music of "Rainbow's End?" is a voyage to a perfect paradise full of visions and sounds that mutate within the passage of minutes. This is an interesting track with moment of clarity and obscure emanations that transport us where our minds want to float in. "Rainbow's End?" is perhaps the darkest of the three, lacking any lighter moments that were found in the previous albums. It lulls your mind with increasing dull colors. They say that there's a treasure at the end of the rainbow but who are "they"? The album art shows us a beautiful red mushroom in its natural surroundings and goes further to suggest the psychedelic nature behind the album's compositions." (Edgar Kerval / Heathen Harvest)