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.

Psychedelic Music

Church of Hed Releases The Fifth Hour!

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Our new album, The Fifth Hour, is officially released! Find it at our Bandcamp page, where you truly support us by paying for a download. Of course, Bandcamp lets you stream the release as well. Download those FLACs derived from the 24-bit masters for the best sound quality, especially compared to streaming services and vinyl! The album is available on most popular streaming services.

Jonathan Segel from those indie-rock legends, Camper Van Beethoven guests on violin, guitar, and bass. Of course, Stan Lyon helps out as usual on bass and even synth! Tell all your friends! Read further for more information on The Fifth Hour as well as a Church of Hed news update. Thanks for checking it out!

The Fifth Hour Liner Notes

Church of Hed - The Fifth Hour - Album Cover
Our new album cover, courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Church of Hed’s new album, The Fifth Hour, features a return to the improvisational and immediate styles of their earlier release, The Fourth Hour, or even Quarkspace’s Spacefolds series. The music squarely resides in space, with deep Kosmische and Berlin School explorations informing the album’s psychedelic electronica and prog. 

Church of Hed’s unique mix of spacerock, psychedelia, prog rock, krautrock, and electronic music channels diverse influences, including CAN, Cluster, Brian Eno, Hawkwind, YES, Glass, Reich, Riley, and so much more. In the end, it always manages to sound predominately like Church of Hed.

Traveling Blue Spaceways to reach the nearest star cluster.

The band’s Paul Williams is joined on The Fifth Hour by Jonathan Segel, from indie-rock legends Camper Van Beethoven, on violin, guitar, and bass, as well as Quarkspace’s Stan Lyon, on bass and synth. Williams plays his usual array of synthesizers, keyboards, beatmakers, sequencers, and electrified drums.

Euclidean drum sequences for your night in space!

A digital release, The Fifth Hour is available on download from Bandcamp, iTunes, and Amazon, as well as the usual low-paying streaming services, such as Apple Music, Spotify, etc. Never forget to support independent music by purchasing downloads and physical copies of albums!

1. Pleiades Waypoint (13.49)

2. Aniluminescence 1 (2.11)

3. Hyades Noir (6.25)

4. Blue Spaceways (4.20)

5. The Fifth Hour (8.43)

6. The Bells of Alpha Persei (3.26)

7. Aniluminescence 2 (1.20)

8. Son of a Silicon Rogue (14.58)

9. Bastard Son of the Fifth Hour (1.54)

Paul Williams: synths, keyboards, sequences, beats, drumming. Jonathan Segel: violin (3,5,8,9), guitar (3,8), bass (5). Stan Lyon: bass (3,9), synth (1).

Produced by Lance Starbridge

Cover photo courtesy NASA

24-bit audio files exclusive to Bandcamp!

Thanks to all family, friends, and pets!

Work Begins on Our Next Album

I dove right in on the next Church of Hed project, quite possibly titled “A Blue Ridge Spaceway.” It’s another aural travelogue in the Rivers of Asphalt series, but this time we travel the Blue Ridge Parkway. The music is much more immediate and Berlin School-esque compared to Rivers of Asphalt and The Father Road.

Driving across the Linn Cove Viaduct?

Since Asheville is one of the prime destinations along the BRP, we only use synths by local synth-makers, Moog Music and Make Noise. We break that rule by also using plugins either by Moog or emulating Moog hardware. XILS-Labs’ Polymoog emulation, PolyM, provides one obvious example of our rule-breaking. Expect some space ambient piano as well! The album drops sometime in early 2025! As always, thanks for reading and listening!

Quarkspace re-release Node in Peril on Bandcamp

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As the end of the year approaches, here’s the latest news from Quarkspace and Church of Hed. Needless to say, 2020 challenged all of us. Hopefully, 2021 offers a chance at a rebound. Either way, expect new music from us (well, at least Church of Hed)!

Node in Peril Now Available on Bandcamp

When legendary comic book artist, Matt Howarth contacted us about doing a project together back in 2003-4, we were game. The resultant Node in Peril is a combination comic book/CD with Matt’s great artwork and storyline. It also features our most psychedelic music. For the December Free Bandcamp Friday, we re-released the album.

Either purchase the comic book/CD or just the digital music. Of course, we’d prefer if you bought the full package. It’s a great piece of outer sci-fi art!

Church of Hed Release Caesar Grinder Salad on Bandcamp

I also released a new extended single on Bandcamp — Caesar Grinder Salad. For this track, I mashed up two classic Quarkspace loops, Recaesarian and Astral Grinder, and added a few overdubs. It’s a classic slab of electronic music meets spacerock whilst odd time-signatures abound. Check it out!

Of course, expect more surprises for the next round of Free Bandcamp Fridays, starting in February.

Fresh Church of Hed Video on YouTube

Speaking of Recaesarian, I performed the Quarkspace track as part of my live stream this summer. Additionally, I did a version of the track with the superior sound quality of a board mix. I uploaded that to YouTube. Check it out!

I continue to rehearse a second set of material, with more Quarkspace material being featured this time out. With new video software on its way, expect some form of a live show video as opposed to a stream. Facebook’s new interface really sucks, which gives us a good reason to choose better sound quality. Expect a YouTube upload, and I may upload it to Facebook as well.

Our Holiday Sale Lasts Until January 3rd

We are also doing a Bandcamp 50 percent off deal until January 3rd, 2021. Just enter “2020holidaze” when checking out to get half-off your order. Add a bit of psychedelic spacerock, prog, and electronic music to your Holidays!

Church of Hed — Sandstoned Released!

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Indeed, the news is true. Church of Hed’s new album, Sandstoned is officially released. The easiest way to check it out is to head over to our Bandcamp page for the album. There you are able to listen to it, buy it digitally, or even get an autographed CD copy. CDs still aren’t dead, by the way.

church of hed--sandstoned-cover

It’s a lovely cover, right? Beautiful Lake Erie at dusk. Those stony times of yore provided inspiration for the music. Thanks to Dan Engelhardt for letting use his cool photos for the front and back covers of the album.

What about streaming Church of Hed?

If you are interested in streaming the album, links to Apple Music and Spotify are on our website page for Sandstoned. We’ll add more links and reviews to that page as they become available. At this point, we are just happy to get the album out to folks.

Tell your friends and enemies (in a Buddhist way) to check out Sandstoned. Its unique mix of psychedelic ambience and freaky beat work needs to be heard. As always, spreading the word helps us immensely! Support Indie Music!

Next on the Docket

The spirit of experimentation and musical exploration blesses our studio. Recording work continues on The Father Road, the sequel to Rivers of Asphalt. An aural travelogue down the Lincoln Highway from San Francisco to New York City, expect its release in 2019 or 2020.

Dink is coming down later this month to work on The Father Road as well as overdubs on The Autumn Shrine and Cold White Universe title tracks for some future release. Spring and Summer are also emerging. More on all that later. Some Quarkspace may even be on the docket?! What!? Once again, more on the later, along with a no promises caveat.

On the studio front, after nearly two decades I am gradually moving from Pro Tools to Ableton Live. Pro Tools’ exponentially growing system requirements don’t warrant further support from us. I thrive on learning, so this change provides fun.

Ultimately, thanks for listening and for your support! Enjoy Sandstoned!

New Church of Hed Album — Sandstoned — coming Soon!

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Yes, it’s true. The new Church of Hed album, called Sandstoned, is arriving very shortly. Well, expect it in about a month, give or take a week. The track listing is as follows:

1. Sandstoned (5.31)
2. Synth Cadence (2.16)
3. 1AM at the Dean Road Bridge (4.18)
4. Quarrydosing (2.19)
5. 2AM at Crownhill Cemetery (5.28)
6. Dark Matter Sandstone (3.25)
7. Wallace Lane (4.30)
8. 3AM at Hole in the Wall (10.50)
9. The Prodigal Swanson (1.21)
10. Sandstoned No. 2 (5.16)

Note the mix of shorter material with a longer trip to the legendary North Coast spot of illicit activity: Hole in the Wall! Residents of Lorain and Amherst know what is up.

Here is the front cover:

sandstoned cover
Church of Hed — Sandstoned front cover.

Followed by the back cover:

sandstoned back cover
Church of Hed – Sandstoned back cover.

The photography of one Dan Engelhardt shines on both.

Pixelated Memories from Beyond

A collection of pixelated memories from those North Coast halcyon days of yore, Sandstoned features the standard Church of Hed mixture of spacerock, prog, and electronic music. Some tracks are quite catchy, but don’t worry, esoteric music still abounds. Quarkspace’s Stan Lyon makes an appearance on guitar and bass — in some cases, with his e-Bow in tow.

The album will be available on CD and at most digital music services. We’ll add some extra liner notes on the listing on our Bandcamp page — including a listing of the gear (hardware and soft) used on the album. As noted earlier, expect the actual release in three to five weeks.

This isn’t about 80s Nostalgia!

The musical influences of the album run the gamut of CAN, The Orb, John Bonham, Talking Heads, Cluster, Brian Eno, and so much more. An 80s vibe naturally lurks, but with the typical forward-looking focus of Church of Hed. Not that that guarantees looking in the right spots! Expect a post or two as the album becomes available in a few weeks.

As always, thank you for the support! Keep listening and tell all your friends!

Church of Hed — Holidays 2017 Update

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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

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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.

Electric Sepulcher reviewed at Expose

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Peter Thelen of the legendary progressive music magazine, Expose, recently reviewed Electric Sepulcher. Check out this great take-away quote:

“If you miss the old days when electronic music was progressive and innovative, and not just a brain-dead wallpaper of 4/4 dance beats, then Electric Sepulcher is definitely worthy of exploration.”

Indeed.

The irony is there are no odd time signatures on Electric Sepulcher. I’ve got the filters at the beginning of Godspeed You! Alien Dingo pulsing in 5/4, but that’s about it. The title track of The Autumn Shrine EP does have a 5/8 section in the middle. I will always love my weirdo timesigs! You should love strange time signatures, too.

Make sure to check out the rest of Peter’s review and explore the rest of Expose if you have any interest in progressive music. No neo/symph only bleating there — although they do cover both sub-genres.

Thanks for listening! And for reading.

 

The Autumn Shrine EP Officially Released!

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The Autumn Shrine EP is officially released! Featuring 22 minutes of Prog, Space Rock, Minimalism, and Electronica, this mini album belongs in your collection today.

The Autumn Shrine EP Cover
Church of Hed — The Autumn Shrine EP

 

A digital only release, the Autumn Shrine EP is the first in hopefully a regular series of timely EP albums released in concert with our normal schedule — as long as the muse allows it! Check out this description:

The Autumn Shrine EP, Church of Hed’s fourth release, is centered on the nearly 14 minute title track, a Floydian spaceprog epic essentially serving as a requiem for Quarkspace. A Philip Glass-inspired Moog improvisation and a beat-laden electronica track from the Electric Sepulcher sessions (Church of Hed’s third album) round out the EP.

You can sample the tracks and purchase a download from CD Baby today. We will be offering a free download with every order of either Electric Sepulcher or Rivers of Asphalt (Quarkspace’s Node in Peril too!) from our shop here at Church of Hed Dot Com. This also includes the free copies of the debut Church of Hed album, as well as Quarkspace’s Drop (an All Music Guide Top Pick), Spacefolds 8 and Spacefolds 9. Whoa. What a deal! Give Hed for the Holidays!

Expect the EP to be available soon from other digital sources, including iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Music, Spotify and more. In fact, we already heard from one fan who listened to the tracks on Spotify overnight. She loved it! Keep an eye on this website, since we’ll update things when reviews are published. As always, we appreciate your support.

PW

New Church of Hed EP — The Autumn Shrine — coming soon!

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I’ve been working hard over the last month on a new EP, entitled “The Autumn Shrine.” More time should be spent marketing and promoting Electric Sepulcher, but hey — music work comes first! I’ve always been jealous of Stereolab’s ability to release EPs and other cool projects almost simultaneously with their regular albums.

The Autumn Shrine Possible 2
This photo will be used in the cover for The Autumn Shrine EP.

The Autumn Shrine contains three pieces. The first one is the title track — a 13-14 minute (still finalizing the ending) epic that essentially works as a requiem for the retired/inertially-challenged Quarkspace. (Bless us.) It follows a suite structure not unlike Shine On You Crazy Diamond; the Floyd influence never leaves us far behind.

Frankly, it’s been a blast writing and recording this fresh piece over the last month or so. The opening piano motif is about two years old and I actually taught it to Jay and we played it with Darren one time back in those halcyon days of 2013.

A Philip Glass-inspired arpeggiation (played on the Moog Sub 37) is the basis for the second piece. A three minute ditty with piano alongside, this piece appeared in late August nearly fully-formed as an improvisation. I just need to mix the thing. And give it a title.

Finally, there is Transaxiom, a track from the Electric Sepulcher sessions that seemed to work better on another release. It was hard work balancing ES into a 40-45 album and the album already had enough “happy” electronica pieces. Once again, the Stereolab model or even The Beatles for that matter applies in this case. Some of the best songs from both bands weren’t on albums.

The Autumn Shrine will be available digitally from the usual sources — iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc. — probably around the end of the month. It won’t be released on CD. Expect to pay around $5 for a download, but we’ll work up a scheme to give downloads away for free with every purchase of Electric Sepulcher or Rivers of Asphalt.

Expect more news when the EP is released!