Our new album, The Fifth Hour now resides on YouTube, with each track’s video featuring surreal visualizations to enhance your aural enjoyment. The entire track list is available as a playlist, making it convenient to listen to the entire album in one setting. Regularly take advantage of this opportunity to travel the star clusters of beyond.
Quarkspace released the album Drop for free nearly 22 years ago while still retaining our copyright. Why? We felt uncomfortable charging for an album with an noncommercial lyrical message. Other bands had also been following a “pay want you want” model so it’s not like we were that much of an outlier.
Of course, we still follow that model today. We provide a free copy of Drop on CD-R with every physical order higher than $5 on our Bandcamp page. It remains the best deal in spacerock and all other musical genres. Remember, the album is an All Music Guide Top Pick, rated 4.5 stars.
Downloading the album from its Bandcamp page is also possible, and we gladly accept donations. However, Drop has never been available on the myriad of digital music streaming services. We recently changed that by uploading the album to YouTube, each track with its own video laden with psychedelic visualizations. Note that Starbridge Freaks 2 has been on YouTube for over a decade.
So feel free to dive into the entire album and tell all your friends! We’ve included each track on this convenient page. Journey with us!
Thanks for listening, watching, and supporting us. Consider a subscription to our YouTube page. Also remember to support us with a download (or more) from our Bandcamp page. If you want a CD-R of Drop, order a few CDs. Thanks again!
Howdy. I hope your spring is going well. We’ve got a fresh news update covering the latest goings-on in Eternity’s Jest land. Enjoy the reading and thanks for the support!
First off, we re-released three (four) classic Quarkspace albums on Bandcamp as part of their Free Bandcamp Fridays. Expect another re-release next Friday. All three (four) are part of the Spacefolds series of improvisational psychedelic spacerock, with a touch of prog and electronic music. Let’s take them in chronological order.
Spacefolds 1 and 2 started things way back in 1996-7. The first features the time-honored Quarkspace improvisational sound, including the classic, Fäerienôt Space. Spacefolds 2 sports our earliest experiments with sampling and beats. Quarkadelic will freak you out!
Released in 2007, Spacefolds 8 provides another hearty dollop of deep Quarkspace excursions. This album also features a guest appearance from Architectural Metaphor’s axe-man, Greg Kozlowski. It’s great stuff!
Finally, we have 2013’s Spacefolds 12, the final installment of the Spacefolds series. Expect a nice mix of spacerock, psychedelic guitar excursions, with a bit of Berlin School and other electronic influences. Buy all three for all your friends! Remember, Bandcamp supports downloads in a variety of formats, including FLAC!
I also created a series of videos of my studio drumming, putting some cool drum plugins through their paces. These include Spitfire Audio’s Hans Zimmer Percussion and MeldaProduction’s MDrummer. I reviewed both for TabMuse — check out the links. I also added a couple of videos showing me practicing tracks from Sandstoned.
Everything is encapsulated in a convenient YouTube playlist. Check them out!
The main focus of my 2021 activity involved finishing the composing and recording of The Father Road, an aural travelogue down today’s Lincoln Highway. My “road construction crew” currently spans from Ohio through West Virginia into Pennsylvania.
After this work completes, only four more of the album’s 20 “songs” need their final compositional activity, Philadelphia through New York City. At that point, mixing begins, along with any fixes. Rest assured, I will be adding some freaky synth and sound effects.
If the album is finished in early November, I plan on releasing it this year. If not, I will wait until early 2022. I’m itching for it to be complete, so I can get back into more a live experimental improv mode before fully diving into Cycle. However, expect some more live video action earlier this summer, as I’m still rehearsing another set of material.
As always, thanks for reading and stay well! Peace!
Indeed, the news is true. The Fourth Hour was officially released this week. Check out our convenient page if you need proof. In fact, that same page is laden with links to the Bandcamp page for the release, as well as CD Baby, Apple Music, and Spotify. We’re simply here to help!
Of course, it was a fun project to complete. Reaper worked beautifully as our new DAW, enabling us to finally move on after nearly two decades of Pro Tools. We also mastered everything “in the box” using a full array of cool plugins that essentially sound the same as our outboard gear.
It’s nice to be able to work again on The Father Road. I am currently porting everything over from Pro Tools to Reaper; the ADAT light pipe cable is shining. After that effort is complete, we move on to recording drum tracks, followed by melodic and spacey overdubs. The Lincoln Highway was never this psychedelic!
Expect a CD release some time in the latter half of next year. We can’t wait. After that, look for The Fifth Hour (yes, The Fourth Hour is the first release in our own “Spacefolds” series), as enough high-quality improvisational material is ready for overdubs. Dink and I went hard. Then Cycle comes next. As always, we’re keeping busy.
We appreciate your continued support. Consider supporting us with a download of the new album from our Bandcamp page. Sure, streaming is available, but it’s more fun collecting your own music, isn’t it?
Once again, thanks for listening!
Welcome to the latest news update from those intrepid travelers at Eternity’s Jest Records. With an emerging Spring now upon us, our thoughts turn towards a few upcoming Church of Hed releases. Let’s dive into the details!
But wait! A quick note to let you know Brandenburg Heights, formerly a Bandcamp exclusive, is being distributed to other digital providers, including Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and more. We’ll do a quick post whenever the album is available.
Now we can dive into the details!
We are hard at work on multiple fronts here at the Church of Hed. Our next three albums happily reside in various states of completion. We’ll look at each following their expected order of release.
First off comes The Fourth Hour, an album focused more on the immediate and the improvisational – it’s almost Spacefolds-esque. We figured this album would come out after The Father Road, but the fact we recently switched from ProTools to Reaper as our DAW (recording software) of choice – after nearly 20 years – rearranged things. The Fourth Hour requires less production than The Father Road, so it makes more sense to finish this one as a project for learning Reaper.
A release sometime this summer is likely. So expect more news on that front in a month or two. In the interim, a single derived from The Fourth Hour sessions, titled Q Ching, is slated for release later this month. Once again, this approach provides us a great way to learn Reaper as well as a robust array of recording plugins, including a ton from Eventide.
Obviously, we’ll let you know when Q Ching and The Fourth Hour are ready for your ears. Expect digital-only releases. Stay tuned!
At the same time as The Fourth Hour, we are also traveling hard down The Father Road. Currently, drum parts are being written and recorded – still in Pro Tools – and when that process is finished, everything gets transferred to Reaper. At that point, the process of finalizing melodies and other “trebly material” is scheduled. The album is coming together fantastically, and since this is a much more complex project from a production standpoint (and twice as long!) it makes sense to release The Fourth Hour first.
There’s still a chance The Father Road might be ready by the end of 2019, but a 2020 release is more likely. We’ll keep you in the loop. Expect a CD and digital release.
Every time we enter the studio, piano practice ensues. Over the last two years, two new pieces appeared during this practicing and are gradually being developed. These two compositions, when paired with two other previously released tracks are slated to make up another Church of Hed album, called Cycle.
Cycle is likely to be released sometime in late 2020 or early 2021. Of course, there may be other albums before that happens, perhaps The Fifth Hour or even The Sixth Hour? Stay tuned and thanks for listening, we’ll keep writing and recording new music for you.
Just a quick note to let everyone know the new Quarkspace album — All These Suns — is imminent. By imminent, I mean in the next week or so. Mastering or technical issues are the only risks for a delay. The album is mixed and 40 percent mastered.
All These Suns is likely Quarkspace’s farewell album, as we are essentially retired. Chet is in California with any plans to visit a few years away. Darren perpetually hopes to make it down, but vehicular issues conspire to limit his travel. Jay remains incognito.
Any future releases likely will focus on anthologies or archival material. It has been a good run. Unexpected really, as our mid 90s reunion/genesis just happened.
Why did Quarkspace Dot Com Redirect Here, Man?
Yeah, Ye Olde Quarkspace Dot Com was an obsolete ASP.NET website I no longer wanted to maintain. The Quarkspace.com domain isn’t going anywhere, but for now it points at ChurchofHed.com. That may change in the future, but for now I am focused on doing music. As always.
Expect to see additional Quarkspace news, information, and sidebar widgets over time. You are able to purchase the three CDs still in print at our Bandcamp page. We still include freebies and postcards with any order over $10. It remains the best deal in spacerock, psychedelic, electronica, or cool prog rock. So there.
Additionally, I need to re-upload the Worcester live show to Bandcamp. That should happen sometime before the end of the year, as we are focused on getting All These Suns to the people.
Work on the Next Church of Hed Releases to Continue
After the Quarkspace release work finishes up, I return to Church of Hed activity. Most of my focus is on The Father Road, but perhaps a single is in the works? A funky piece of electronica appeared recently and Dink added some overdubs. Check back in 2019!
I am also switching from Pro Tools to Reaper as our DAW of choice. Ye Olde Pro Tools served us well, but Reaper seems a better path moving forward.
As always, thanks for reading and listening!
As promised in our last news digest, the new Church of Hed album, Brandenburg Heights, was just released. In the classic Berlin School format, the album features two 20-minute tracks. It almost makes me wish I had a vinyl fetish!
The album is available exclusively on Bandcamp; it’s digitally available today, with CDs arriving in about two weeks. Expect an update when that happens. If you don’t trust us, check out the back cover:
Expect reviews to be added to the Brandenburg Heights page on this website as they are published. We may even sell the CDs using the shopping cart here, but they will definitely be available from Bandcamp. The same “Buy One Get Four Free” deal will be in force, so you can score on the debut Church of Hed CD as well as Quarkspace’s Drop, Spacefolds 8, and Spacefolds 9 as well for one low price. The best deal in music!
I am also constantly working on new music, so look for news shortly on a couple upcoming projects — in addition to the sequel to Rivers of Asphalt. A decent amount of the road design, uh, music composition, is complete on the latter album. Still, it will take at least a year or two to record it. I don’t want to get bogged down with it like the original album which took from 2004 to 2010 to finish. The Era of Slacking, indeed.
As always, thanks for listening and the support. Get out there and buy many Brandenburg Heights copies for all your friends!
Howdy. I just wanted to share some news about the latest happenings here at the Church of Hed. Our last update is here if you are interested in checking it out. Thanks for the interest as always.
Work on the new Church of Hed Album Continues
I’ve been working on hard on my new album which is probably going to be called Brandenburg Heights. One of the pieces involves a total destruction/reconstruction of the old Quarkspace electronica classic, Recaesarian, from Spacefolds 5 — more on that later. “Caesar” got me thinking Roman, which made me ponder the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. I grew up near a town in Ohio called Berlin Heights. Throw in the modern Berlin School style of the music and there you have the album title etymology.
Speaking of Berlin School, the album follows the classic 70s format used by Tangerine Dream and early Mike Oldfield, featuring two “title tracks” with the added Part 1 and Part 2 monikers. Part 1 is the aforementioned Recaesarian reconstruction. I owned the Volca Bass and Keys for about a year (as of January 2016), using them primarily as sound modules instead of their embedded sequencer functionality.
After picking up the Korg SQ-1 to serve as a MIDI sync traffic cop between the Volcas, Monotribe, Teenage Electronics PO-12, and the glorious Moog Sub 37, I started to work on this large-form Berlin School piece using the 5/4 time signature, key of D, and chord progression from the live version of Recaesarian. This Philip Glass inspired minimalism section appeared in the middle, with a soft landing serving as a coda arriving some 20 minutes after the beginning.
I was able to recreate the piece live in the studio and finally got a basic recording I liked. Over the past few months, work continued involving orchestration and physically playing new parts. Doing those Glass arpeggios on the weighted keys of my Yamaha MM8 still requires some effort and practice. I’ve always liked to combine sequenced, quantized loops, beats, and patterns with kinetic playing on both drums and keys. So there.
Part 2 began to take form when I found a studio improv I recorded last December featuring a Sub 37 arpeggiation and a live drum beat all in 7. Taking a more modular form, I gradually wrote a few other parts — all in weirdo time signatures — including some Berlin School action using the same setup as Part 1. This track also comes in at around 20 minutes.
Brandenburg Heights, Part 2 is almost finished; I just need to add some sprinkles and frosting. I plan on having the album out this fall and it will be released exclusively on Bandcamp. With two 20 minute tracks, I don’t feel this release is appropriate for streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, et al. I’d get less than a tenth of a penny for an entire album stream. I will also have an autographed hard copy CD-R version available from the Bandcamp page with the same BOG4 deal we offer at Eternity’s Jest Records.
The Rivers of Asphalt Sequel in Progress
Concurrently with the work on Brandenburg Heights, I’ve been writing and practicing material from my next, next album which will be a sequel to Rivers of Asphalt. Instead of Route 66, we are traveling the Lincoln Highway from San Francisco to New York City. I’ve written material for San Fran along with most of the areas from Kansas to the East Coast. I haven’t recorded much yet, but continue to practice and refine the material. This one gonna be proggie.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Expect an update when Brandenburg Heights is released.
Howdy,
Just a long overdue news update to keep you informed about the latest happenings with the Church of Hed. First off, I’ve uploaded two of our albums to Bandcamp — Electric Sepulcher and The Autumn Shrine EP. Expect Rivers of Asphalt and the Church of Hed debut to show up there over the next few weeks, when I get a spare moment or three for uploading. We’ve piggybacked onto the Quarkspace Bandcamp account for simplicity’s sake.
You have the option to listen to the albums, download them in FLAC or MP3, or even purchase a CD in the case of Electric Sepulcher. As always, we throw in a free download card for The Autumn Shrine EP (among other freebies) as a “thank you” for your support.
New Church of Hed Album in Progress
I’m also in the middle of recording a new album. This comes as a surprise, since I really should be working exclusively on the sequel to Rivers of Asphalt — I am still composing and getting my fingers familiar with the parts on RoA 2, but it isn’t my main focus, currently.
After picking up the Korg SQ-1 sequencer, I rearranged my studio so the SQ-1 could serve as a sync “traffic cop” between my Volcas, Monotribe, Teenage Engineering PO-12, and the Moog Sub 37. Needless to say, a new Berlin School composition appeared soon afterward. It clocks in a 20-21 minutes in the old school way.
A complimentary piece was developed out of a Sub 37/drum improvisation, with additional sections being written, including another SQ-1 managed sequencer workout. This track also approaches the twenty-minute mark.
Additional overdub and orchestration parts are being written, rehearsed, and recorded. I’m really excited about this album! Expect a release later this year — probably late summer or early fall.
At this point, I am considering making it an exclusive Bandcamp release, since two twenty minute tracks don’t really fit the current streaming-based digital music market. I expect to provide some form of CD version through Bandcamp as well. We’ll have more details as the release gets closer.
As always, thanks for listening! It’s Eternity’s Jest Records 20th anniversary this year — thank you for your continued support of our weirdo music stylings!