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Himalayan Bear announces E Coast dates - 3rd album
10/27/2011
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Victoria, BC’s Himalayan Bear aka Ryan Beattie will be celebrating the release of his third album Hard Times, with a series of East Coast performances. On Hard Times Beattie (guitarist for Frog Eyes, Chet), exhibits an indisputable level of ingenuity, a fetish for reverb and a voice that is as delicate as it is potent. The new album was recorded in Victoria, BC Canada primarily at close friend Myke Hall’s basement studio at The Last Resort as well as part at Beattie’s own studio co-produced by Myke and Ryan. Hard Times is being released October 11 on Absolutely Kosher Records. Early press response has been excellent:
…He's been making music since his teens, but it wasn't until his early twenties that Beattie discovered he could sing as mournfully as his heroes. His voice can be low, soothing, and subdued in one moment, only to launch into a howling falsetto in the next.
Although Hard Times often evokes the leisurely tropical repose of the Hawaiian music Beattie enjoys, it also meanders into the shadowy, foreboding wilderness where he resides…France Cappell /Bay Guardian 10/18
I know this one sounds like a downer, but I find beauty in this track from the artist otherwise known as Ryan Beattie. Whitney Matheson/ usatoday.com/communities/popcandy 7/13
Ryan Beattie, the Himalayan Bear, has obviously sprung from the same roots as Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Billy Burnette, and the twangier side of Lindsay Buckingham. He takes an intensely personal tack in all he does, so there's a decidedly eccentric bent to the old-timey environment he sets up, … There's that kinda Twin Peaksy vibe here, reminiscent while weird and almost creepy (so, yeah, think of Blue Velvet and madman Dennis Hopper as well)… Mark Tucker/AcousticMusic.com 7/22
… Beattie crafts some great sounding songs and atmosphere throughout the record and keeps things interesting from start to finish. Keep an eye out for this one. Adam Bubolz/Reviler.org 10/11
This Bear sounds like a Morrissey who could change the oil on his car. Jake Austen/Rocktober.com 6/25
Hard Times was recorded over the course of a year between Feb 2010 and Feb 2011. The core personnel on most tracks comprised Marek Tyler on drums, Dennis Siemens on double bass, Dan Weisenberger on lap steel, Eric Gallipo on trumpet, Scott Henderson on saxophone and Tolan McNeil on electric bass and lap steel. The Last Resort is the home of pirate-country singer Carolyn Mark and Myke, but it also operates as an informal hub of musical activity in Victoria with local musicians dropping in to hang-out, brainstorm and jam at any time of day or night. As a result, there were plenty of occasions when a friend or colleague was relaxing upstairs who played, say, saxophone. "I think this song needs some loose-cannon sax here." Myke would say and I’d reply, "Scott Henderson's upstairs!! I'll get him." It was a very casual and social environment to record.
Hard Times finds Beattie once again exercising his unbridled ability to take his listeners to an emotional breaking point only to release his lyrical grip and lead them to another region of consciousness through a song by song lineage that is as beautiful as it is merciless. The listener is given full allowance to bear witness to sounds that may resemble the slow jubilation of a lazy tropical contentment or a foreboding acceptance of a hypothermic state where the brain tells a freezing body that everything is just fine. This is the true power of Beattie’s words and arrangements, his merits lie solely in his restraint, wavering on a threshold that can lift the heart one minute only to break it the next, but no matter what the outcome - leaves the listener yearning for more.
Ryan is a Victoria native, having spent his teen years Vancouver before moving back in the late 90’s. He started making records in his parents’ basement as a teenager having completed some 15 recording projects to date. In 2003, he started the critically acclaimed band “Chet” which is currently on hiatus. For the past four years he’s been the guitarist for Frog Eyes, touring extensively with them.
Hard Times marks the third album from Himalayan Bear, following 2005’s Lo Lonesome Island and 2007’s ...Attacks The Brilliant Air. He plans to tour in support of his Himalayan Bear pursuits for the next period of his musical life.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Himalayan-Bear/155690741109397
http://himalayanbear.bandcamp.com/
http://www.myspace.com/himalayanbear
Himalayan Bear Tour Dates
Nov. 26th – Victoria, BC – Lucky Bar +
Nov. 29th – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern +
Nov. 30th – Ottawa, ON – Raw Sugar Cafe +
Dec. 1st – Montreal, QC – Casa del Popolo +
Dec. 2nd – Quebec, QC – Le Cercle +
Dec. 4th – Hamden, CT – The Space +
Dec. 5th – Boston, MA – Church of Boston +
Dec. 6th – Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory * +
Dec. 7th – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s +
Dec. 8th – Arlington, VA – IOTA Club & Cafe +
Dec. 9th – Durham, NC – The Pinhook +
Dec. 10th – Atlanta, GA – Drunken Unicorn +
Dec. 11th – Knoxville, TN – Pilot Light +
Dec. 12th – Nashville, TN – The Basement +
Dec. 13th – St Louis, MO – Cicero’s +
Dec. 14th – Chicago, IL – Double Door +
Dec. 15th - Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme +
Dec. 16th - London, ON – Call the Office +
Dec. 17th - Waterloo, ON – Jane Bond Restaurant +
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