0801 Beequeen:::: Time Waits For No One (Remaster 2008)

1 Whispering Confessions 3:08
2 Der Holzweg 4:56
3 Rupert Writes A Rainbow 10:11
4 The Shore Of Leaves 3:09
5 Fafagg 1:12
6 V-Time 4:55
7 Illusions 4:20
8 Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps 3:59
9 Six Notes On Blank Tape 20:55 (excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50 minutes+
Release date: June 2008
12 Euros + shipping order

Related resources:
Geographically connected
Roel Meelkop :::: Oude Koeien


Review(s):
Touching Extreme
The duo of Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, Beequeen belong to the bulky file of musical entities that I’ve been familiar with for many, many years - but only nominally. Believe it or not, your over-enthusiastic reviewer had never listened to their records before, although meeting the name on every mail order list of the last decade and a half. This reissue of a 1994 Staalplaat release fits perfectly in the ice-breaking experience, as inaugurating my acquaintance with the project by listening to an earlier-period outing is perhaps a good thing. Credited with “instruments, electronics, treatments, voices”, De Waard and Kinkelaar seem to know what they’re doing since the very beginning. What they actually do is eliciting outlandish kinds of resonance, generally from the vibration of one or more strings or single notes (i.e. the opening of “Six notes on blank tape”), while adding lots of oscillating high frequencies (“Rupert writes a rainbow” fuses the best of two worlds in that sense) and trance/ritual waste materials. You might often be tempted to call this record drone-based, yet it’s not exclusively that: the vu-meters indicating the level of abstractness point to the red area quite frequently, and there’s nothing that can be acceptably defined as monothematic or minimal, unless we want to consider enthralling looped segments as such (“The shore of leaves” being dazzling stuff indeed, somehow reminding yours truly of Zoviet France; the same goes for the percussive “V-time”). In essence, this album still sounds modern enough for us not to neglect it, leaving the door of the room of past experience ajar to get a glance at our memories. Even those about previously unheard music.
- Massimo Ricci -

VITAL WEEKLY
"Time waits for no one". How true that is; took me quite some of it, to get to actual writing on this latest offering from Beuys aficionados "Beequeen". This re-release of the 1995 album, has been spinning in my player for quite some months now, and I try to make myself believe that 2 or 3 months more, do not affect the discourse. After all, this album has been out there for quite a bit already and as opposed to the title, this album doesn't sound outdated at all. Unfortunately I cannot do the test of comparing it with the original, but I have to say that the re-mastering (care of Jos Smolders) is crystal clear and carries a warm vibe. Okay, so the overall feel brings back thoughts of droney tribalism a la Zoviet France and/or soundscape experimentation a la Hafler Trio, but still today Stockhausen and Henry sound fresh to me. Modern day droneys like Uton or Datashock do not acknowledge their roots either. "Time Waits for no one" is a great album that spreads about a certain calmness and that grows on you after repeated listens. Sometimes the edges get a bit sharper but the overall atmosphere is moody, dark and eerie. Not depressive though, more the contemplative kind or the ideal setback to repent one's sins. Apart from that is it also interesting for the new listeners that got more acquainted with recent albums like "Sandancing" or "The Body Shop". Essential listening so to speak; a piece of history brought back to life by the gentle folks at Herbal International.
- Steffan de Turck -

Monsieur Delire
Paru à l’origine en 1994, réédité par Herbal International en 2008. Je n’avais pas entendu ce disque à sa sortie originale, et maintenant je comprends très bien qu’on ait ressenti le besoin de le rééditer. C’est, à la base, un excellent Beequeen, mais c’est surtout un disque qui, en 1992-1993 (période de sa composition), était singulièrement en avance sur son époque. Frans de Waard et Freek Kinkelaar ont concocté un album d’électronica expérimentale avant la lettre, dont on sent encore les origines industrielles. Time Waits for No One mérite le statut de classique du genre, au même titre que les premiers Pan Sonic ou Endless Summer de Fennesz.

First released in 1994, reissued by Herbal International in 2008. I hadn’t heard this upon its release, but now I know why someone felt it had to be reissued. To start with, it’s an excellent Beequeen album, but more important, this record was surprisingly ahead of its time back in 1992-1993 (when it was composed). Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar brewed up an experimental electronica album before the term was coined, and you can still hear the Industrial lineage of this music. Time Waits for No One deserves a “classic” status, just as the first few Pan Sonic albums or Fennesz’s Endless Summer.
- François Couture -

Textura.org
Time Waits For No One’s material isn’t new, having been recorded in Nijmegen in 1992-93 and originally released in 1994 on Staalplaat, but the genre of experimental drone-based exploration is one of those most capable of transcending time. Beequeen members Freek Kinkelaar (Brunnen) and Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek, Goem) use electronics, voices, and unidentified instruments to scatter two long tracks (ten and twenty minutes) amongst seven more modest settings. Whether long or short, the pieces are largely hazy meditations whose industrial churn is speckled with string plucks, percussive patterns, and electronic effects. Not surprisingly, the long tracks make the strongest impression: in the episodic “Six Notes on Blank Tape,” bowed scrapes of string instruments groan over a throbbing bass drone and the simulated roar of a train clatters along its tracks, and in the album’s most fully-realized piece, the a doomscape “Rupert Writes a Rainbow,” a ‘50s sci-fi synthesizer floats atop a droning unfurl of whooshes and gaseous emissions. The album’s material unfurls organically in subtle strokes, sometimes so quietly it verges on microsound, and the generally relaxed feel suggests the collaborators had ample studio time with which to pursue their playful explorations.

Norman Records
I've always been reasonably intrigued by Beequeen. I like the name.... yet despite a number of releases on Infraction, Korm Plastics, Mille Plateaux, Important etc I'm yet to hear any... til now that is. After a quick hunt around the internet I discover it's Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar. Two Dutch Musicians from the Netherlands who make music. 'Time Waits For No One' has been remastered in all of it's dronetastic glory. This is weird experimental drone music which has a very spacey feel to it. At times it's minimal and at others there's loads of stuff going on with loads of weird frequencies and modulator things doing their business. For fans of serious experimental drone music!

Bad Alchemy 61
Das mit seinem Titel die Rolling Stones zitiert, hatte 1994 noch Marilyn Monroe auf dem Cover, jetzt bei dieser Wiederveröffentlichung eine völlig zerbombte WW II-Stadtmondlandschaft. I really think it matches the original Monroe-cover when it comes to beauty, gibt sich Freek Kinkelaar dazu hartgesotten. Er & Frans de Waard schienen aber bereits in Marilyn ein Vanitas-Motiv zu umkreisen, das deuten zumindest Titel wie ’The Shore of Leaves', ’Illusions' und ’Perhaps perhaps perhaps' an. Da könnten ihnen durchaus Mick Jaggers Zeilen Drink in your summer, gather your corn; The dreams of the night time will vanish by dawn durch den Kopf gegangen sein. Aber wo fände man keinen Anlass für Melancholie und dystopische Ahnungen? Die ’Furie des Verschwindens', mit der schon Hegel und H.M. Enzensberger per Du gewesen sind, imprägniert den Dreamscape der beiden Niederländer mit einer Tristesse, die jenseits von Gesten der Auflehnung um eine poetische Einstellung zum Unvermeidlichen bemüht scheint. Das rituelle Getrommel von ’Fafagg' sagt wohl: Nach uns die Steinzeit. Bei ’V-Time' ist das Getrommel industrial geworden, ein monoton rotierender Morlock-Beat auf vollen Touren, der bei ’Illusions' schon wieder archaisch ausdünnt zum Toktoktok, neben dem einer zu versuchen scheint, aus Feuerstein Funken zu schlagen. ’Perhaps...' lässt dann wie von einer Klangschale einen ’singenden' Oberton dahin schweifen, bevor das 21-min. ’Six Notes on a blank Tape' mit nachhallenden Dongs einsetzt und dunkles Gewummer - wie von einem Bombengeschwader? - die Luft erfüllt. Eine Geige kratzt diskant und kaputt. So klingen die ersten Notizen. Weitere, ähnlich düstere, und ein Ritornell des Getrommels, aufs Äußerste alarmiert, folgen. Der Zahn der Zeit hat dem bisher nichts anhaben können. Und Schönheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters.
- Rigobert Dittmann -

Heathen Harvest
Beequeen, and this album in particular, often draw comparisons to Zoviet France, a group who I consider to be among the greatest musicians in any genre of any era. “Time Waits For No One” is a re-release of a CD that came out on Staalplaat in 1994, and is cited among Beequeen fans as a high point in their rather prolific output.

Many may be most familiar with one half of the duo that is Beequeen: Frans de Waard, member of Kapotte Muziek (among others) and owner of Korm Plastics. Frans’ output in and outside of Beequeen is, on occasion, among the more exemplary of the softer side of post-industrial music, and generally of the “high-brow” and “conceptual” variety. “Conceptual” music, to me, often results in something in which the final result is more interesting in theory or as an idea than as a finished work, a criticism that I sometimes apply to Franzs’ work, especially the more recent material.

In earlier times, tape looping and manipulation was the key approach utilized, but has been replaced by a reliance on software and computers, which has, to my ears, led to a significant decline in the quality of his output. On this album, we hear sounds originating in the analog and acoustic domain; sound sources citied include “instruments, electronics, treatments, voices.” Oscillations and stepped modulation frequently utilized, along with rhythmic loops, guitar and other samples to create abstract soundscapes and ambient experimentation, frequently reminiscent of Zoviet France material that came out just before this material was recorded.

There are many points on this album that are very enjoyable, particularly on the opening track, “Whispering Confessions,” and tracks seven and eight, “Illusions” and “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps,” respectively. “Whispering Confessions” and “Illusions” makes ample use of rhythmic percussive loops and off-kilter background noises that provide the dynamic elements buried in a wash of ambient and reverberated melodic tones. “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps” has slowly drifting oscillations that almost sound as though they were derived from a Hammond organ or Farfisa, with textural noises creeping out of the drones.

Track two, “Der Holzweg,” has clean guitar strums or plucks drifting through reverberated space, with a rather bothersome step-sequenced modulation throughout. Track three, the roughly ten-minute long “Rupert Writes A Rainbow,” is filled with out of control oscillations that make it sound amateurish and unlistenable. The following three tracks don’t feature such bothersome elements but don’t offer much of interest conceptually or interesting to listen to, to carry the album until it picks up again. On multiple listens, I eventually ended up skipping tracks to find something that “worked.”

The first eight, mainly shorter, tracks take up the first two-thirds of the album, and the final, epic “Six Notes on Blank Tape” takes up the final twenty-one minutes. This final track helps to redeem the album, considerably, offering predominantly an excellent variety of sounds in very careful composition. The beginning starts off with drones seemingly derived from bowed heavy strings – as that of a cello – with dynamic screeches from a similar source floating through the droning soundscape. As this bed of sound fades away, a percussive guitar sound carries into erratic, frantic percussion, and finishing with high pitched drones floating above a deeper, cello-like drone.

This is an album with several very solid “songs” or tracks that are of the highest order and excellent examples of experimental ambient sound. Because half of the tracks don’t work at all for me (many of which I find completely annoying) I see my future listens of this album being dependent on heavy use of the “skip” button.

For this reissue, the material has been remastered, and the packaging has been completely redone with all new graphics. Shifting from an image of (presumably) Marilyn Monroe, pictured prominently on the cover to a hazy image of a destroyed urban landscape doesn’t make any sense at all, to me, but I find the packaging on this edition to be more appealing.
- Ben Brucato -

Just Outside
A re-release of a 1994 disc on Staalplaat (and, I think, out for at least a couple of years on Herbal). Beequeen is Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar; I gather they issued a number of recordings back around that time but they're new to me. Glancing over reviews, I see groups like Zoviet France referenced quite a bit, a group I heard some of at the time but didn't particularly intrigue me. There's an entire area, something I might think of as industrial drones with a decided rock substratum, that I tend to find momentarily attractive but which wears out its welcome rather rapidly. "Dark Eno", I sometimes call it. At its best ("v-time", "six notes on blank tape"), there's enough bubbling, agitating activity to sustain some interest, but even there, the rather sterile synth-like tones (which are more prominent elsewhere) inhibit any great enjoyment on my part. Clearly more a matter of my taste than any comment on the inherent nature or quality of the music, which seems ably performed. Just not my cuppa.
- Brian Olewnick -

«Time Waits For No One» - переиздание Малазийским лейблом Herbal International второго альбома «Пчелиной королевы», который изначально был выпущен в 1994 году лейблом Staalplaat. Руины на новой обложке закономерно вызывают не самые приятные и миролюбивые ассоциации, но, к счастью, сама музыка за авторством Франса де Ваарда и Фрика Кинкелаара с войной и разрухой никак не связана. На самом деле это крайне абстрактные музыкальные зарисовки в духе Kapotte Muziek, где статичная пелена выхолощенных размытых звуков может прерываться мимолетной шумовой вспышкой или циркулирующими внутри неясного гула звуками механического происхождения. Где-то миром простых звуковых манипуляций правит статика, где-то застывшие формы трансформируются в простой и мягкий эмбиент. Короткие сэмплы циркулируют по кругу, длинные гудения разрываются и снова соединяются – все треки этого альбома существуют автономно, друг с другом не пересекаясь и в целом «Time Waits For No One» похож на компиляцию «неизданного ранее». Звук диска имеет какую-то странную особенность, словно все треки писались через аналоговый микрофон, отчего звучание имеет некую приглушенность, размазанность и следы пленочного шума. А еще иногда не покидает ощущение некоей «механистичности» самой музыки, хотя есть и крайне приятные и эмоциональные моменты, «Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps», например. Хорошее переиздание популярного альбома в меру культовой группы многоликого композитора де Ваарда.
- Сергей Сергеевич -

The Wire March 1995
After a first listening-trial I concluded that this wasn't exactly my cup of tea... Some weeks later, however, I had to change my opinion. I had given this CD another chance, and while I was doing something else, this CD was nicely rumbling in the background. By mistake I'd put my CD-player in "random-repeat" mode, and by the time I discovered my horrible act, the music had penetrated my mind several times already ... I found myself being carried away on noisy waves, now and then penetrated by beautiful analog bleebs, blobs and distorted frequencies... My heart was beating on the rhythm of short looped sounds and percussion, and at the end of my hallucination I entered the world of Thee Mighty Drone and His o Royal Ambientcy. When I regained back consciousness, Marylin Monroe was sitting next to me and asked me if I liked cream and sugar in my coffee... OK, cut the crap; this is a rather good buy! The gauzy image of Marilyn Monroe on the cover of this record is a bit ambiguous, unless it is reflective of the sometimes austere pace and feel conveyed by the electronics therein. Actually, Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, with their banks of electronics and other unspecified instruments, convey many alternatively bleak, if imagistic, soundscapes, either through the wheezing of asthmatic machines, drones of catatonia immersed in cryogenic guitar feedback or the steamy smelt of arcane industry. Atonal occasionally, even unearthly, yet strangely accessible, these works are part of an aesthetic wherein the forging of an unfamiliar sound canvas becomes the springboard from which the listener can extract pictures, panoramas, shapes. Any other points of harmonic reference become irrelevant; so ultimately, as the music crystallizes, one is left with Its residual suggestions. Engrossing music that subtly leaves the impression to come back and experience it further.
- Darren Bergstein -

Reverb March 1995
Wonderful positive yet dark ambience, if that's possible from former MFTEQ contributor Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar. Acoustic guitars and strings resonate as petit electronics pitter patter. Mysterious tones invoke splendid colours as subtle rhythms gradually move into the mix. Beequeen remind me of the mighty Deutsch Nepal. I can't get enough of this.
- MFR -

Audion Summer/Autumn 1994
Taking their name from a work by Joseph Beuys, the Dutch duo Beequeen have taken it to heart to create a sonic experience that Is like a living organism, a melange of oozing textures, rhythmical structures, cyclical pumping surges of sound, arranged as if In an ambient visionary landscape, a painting for the ears. The experience naturally recalls earlier works by Zoviet France and The Hafler Trio, with much use, of processed and degraded sounds. As strange and enigmatic as Its minimal four-fold digipak cover.
- Alan Freeman

Vital #36
Only seldom have I heard music that was so unobtrusive as this Beequeen-CD. The music remains calm, focusing on a mood, much more than musicality. It's not just ambient and quite different from the works of Brian Eno. The comparison that does come up is with Zoviet France, because of its repetitive character. The instrumentarium is for the most part electronic, occasionally added with (remote) voices, (remote) drums, or (remote) snares. At times there seems to be more aggression in the sound, e.g. when drums are used. But when this happens it sounds quite remote, like a distant thunder. I like the atmosphere, which remains relaxed without ever getting even close to 'new age'.
- IS -