Welcome to the Church of Hed

Home of Eternity's Jest Records, Inc. and Quarkspace Too

Forward looking aural travelogues expressed in progressive, psychedelic electronica and rock. Beats. Loops. Songs. Improv. Large-form compositions. Hyper-kinetic playing. 21st Century Berlin School meets spacerock and prog. Home of Church of Hed and Quarkspace.

Alternate Mode

Church of Hed — Holidays 2017 Update

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been remiss in properly adding a news story or two in the last few months. Sorry. As always, keep an eye on the Church of Hed Facebook page for more timely dispatches. Nonetheless, it’s the Holiday season, and we’ve got some relevant news to report!

Church of Hed Holiday Deal at Bandcamp

We’re currently running a promotion at our Bandcamp site giving you 35 percent off our entire digital discography. It’s a great deal and Bandcamp even makes it easy to give the discography as gifts. As more people rely on streaming services for their music consumption, downloads remain the best to truly support the musical artist. Manage your own music library; don’t let The Man do it!

Of course, CDs are also available through our Bandcamp site, and a great deal is to be had as well. Simply spend $10 on CDs and receive 4.5 albums for free — including both Church of Hed and those lovable nursing-home residents, Quarkspace. As always, thanks for the support — we appreciate and rely on it!

New Church of Hed Album coming Soon!

Work continues on the next Church of Hed album. The pieces are around 90-95 percent composed and I’d estimate recording is nearly 80-85 percent complete. The album features a mix of krautrock, spacerock, prog, and psychedelia, per usual, expressed in both shorter and longer songs. Some of them are quite catchy, but esoteric weirdness abounds throughout; so don’t you worry. Overall, it is definitely more beat-oriented compared to our last full release.

amherst sandstone
The Sandstone Center was “a land that would nourish a lot of space rock activity.”

The album’s theme is essentially a postcard from (or to?) my hometown. More on that when it gets closer to release. Stan Lyon (of Quarkspace, New Druids, and Church of Hed fame) visited to add some bass and freaky guitar stylings. Dink went hard and the album benefits because of his presence.

I made a couple YouTube videos showing me working on drum beats for two of the tracks. The sound quality isn’t the best, as we were experimenting with how well the iPad worked for recording sound and video without any other hardware or embellishment.

The above video is from the title track. You’ll learn more at a later date.

This is from the last piece to be composed so it is pretty sparse — just Moog bass, a drum machine rhythm, and my live kit work. Recently, I wrote a love letter to my TrapKAT e-drum for my music technology site, TabMuse, and these videos were part of that article.

I’m getting a new music computer and audio interface soon, and will be experimenting with fresh mixing and mastering techniques, so that part of the album’s process might take longer than usual. Nonetheless, I am still shooting for an early 2018 release.

Progress continues on The Father Road Too!

I’ve also made good progress on the following Church of Hed album, the long-awaited sequel to Rivers of Asphalt, called The Father Road. All the basic tracks are composed — nearly 80 minutes worth — and some of the motifs and basic parts are recorded. Dink helped out with that process. Still looking at a late 2018 – early 2019 release for that album.

The Church of Hed Debut now a Free Download at Bandcamp

For its 15th anniversary, we decided to make the debut Church of Hed album a free download at Bandcamp. Of course, you can donate a payment as well. Many of you have already taken advantage of this deal with some actually donating. Thank you! Remember, an autographed CD copy of the debut album is available for free when you spend more than $10 on CDs at our Bandcamp site.

Well, that’s it for now. Enjoy your Holidays and stay tuned for news on our new album early in 2018. Like us on Facebook for more up to date information. Hell, you can follow us on Twitter as well.

Church of Hed — June 2017 Un-Fake News

by 2 Comments

With summertime nigh, it becomes the perfect moment to offer an update of the latest goings-on here at the Church of Hed.

New Church of Hed Projects proceed Swimmingly

Not surprisingly, I’ve roped myself into working on two projects simultaneously, with both seeing significant progress worthy of reporting. Our next album is more of a beat-laden work with shorter pieces; it’s similar to Electric Sepulcher in that regard. I wake up in the A.M. and compose a beat…

amherst sandstone
The Sandstone Center was “a land that would nourish a lot of space rock activity.”

Beats are arriving from everywhere — hardware drum machines, human playing, iOS apps — whatever channels the Muse. There are now more inspired ideas than necessary, which bodes well for filling-out future seasonal EPs. Riffs and melodies bubble up and are usually captured. I expect to be able to release a single by the end of this year, with the full album arriving sometime in 2018 — hopefully early. Stay tuned.

The other album, known as The Father Road, is the sequel to our Rivers of Asphalt release. This time out, we travel the Lincoln Highway from San Francisco to New York City. The basic musical motifs and interludes for the entire journey are now composed, and some of them are actually recorded. I am a little more focused on the “beat-laden project” for the time-being, so expect The Father Road to be released in 2019. I expect to rope a few special guests to help on this project, so that may delay its eventual release as well.

Needless to say, I’m happy with the progress on both fronts. While we’d love to have a full album out in 2017, the Muse remains the ultimate arbiter of release dates. So there.

I’m a KAT Official Artist!

Alternate Mode, the fine purveyor of electronic percussion equipment, produces the TrapKAT, which has been an essential part of my studio and live setup for years. The company recently anointed me as an Official KAT ARTIST. Check out the short interview and such. B’boom! Guys, I’d love a MalletKAT if you have one to spare!

PaulKAT
My TrapKAT and I transverse the sky. Photo by Angela Williams.

Church of Hed Interview in Inside the Rift with a Special Remix

Inside the Rift is an excellent online resource covering music (predominately of the electronic form) in addition to other takes on the nexus between art, intellectualism, and business. Prox interviewed me for the magazine a few weeks ago. I also produced a special exclusive remix as part of the fun. Said remix, Caesar Grinder Salad, mashes up the old Quarkspace tracks Recaesarian and Astral Grinder into one freaked-out whole. I had loads of fun putting this together, despite my left-hand almost dying when doing the e-piano bass line on the weighted keys. First world problems.

That’s about it for this month’s edition of the news. I will shout out when anything else newsworthy happens.

P.S. — I’ve been working on live versions of some of the Church of Hed material primarily for practice purposes, but hope to record video of the in-studio fun for public consumption. As I don’t want to schlep gear around anymore, hate driving any farther than 20 miles at a time, and I can’t afford roadies, this would be the closest to a live show we’re willing to perform. Stay tuned, again.