Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
$6.99USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
The classic Quarkspace live album, recorded at the legendary Orion Studios in Baltimore, MD. Includes the Eternity's Jest "Buy One Get Four Free" deal! Free CD-r copies of Quarkspace's Drop (an All Music Guide Top Pick!), Spacefolds 8, Spacefolds 9, a CD copy of the debut Church of Hed album, and a download card for Church of Hed's The Autumn Shrine EP with every order. The best deal in music right here, yo! Git ya some!
Includes unlimited streaming of Live Orion
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Live Orion was recorded at the first Orion Spacerock Festival in October 1997 at the legendary Orion Studios in the major American city located between Washington and Philadelphia. No, not Wilmington. The one that stole our football team. Never mind.
It's an inspired live performance and features the definitive versions of Dancing Swan and In My Lost Mind. However, we were about to become way more freakier. Our salad days were soon-come. Enjoy this digital re-release on Bandcamp!
Whitehawk Space was recorded at Orion in March 1997.
Mixed at Orion in February 1998; Mastered at Eternity's Jest Studios in March 1998.
credits
released June 22, 1998
Darren Gough: Guitar
Chet Santia: Bass, Vox, Guitar, Loops
Jay Swanson: Keyboards
Dave Wexler: Guitar
Paul Williams: Drums, Keyboards, Loops
All Music Composed or Improvised by Quarkspace, except for #4 which is Quarkspace/Fox
Color Photography by Linda Shulman
Thanks to Adam Levin, Alien Planetscapes, Architectural Metaphor, Escapade, Fingerpaint, and The Solar Fire Lightshow!
Produced by Quarkspace and Mike Potter
Reviews
This 68-minute CD was recorded live at the Orion Space Rock Festival in Baltimore, 1997. This performance superbly captures the band's atmospheric yet energetic sound.
There are some vocals, but the songs are primarily instrumental dreams of fire. Lilting keyboards are present in profusion: swooping in astral fields, or riffing in a progressive jazz manner. Sinuous percussives provide lively tempos for the cosmic journeys, whether in abstract peripheral structure, or pounding away in lizardly rhythms. A subtle bassline slithers through the mix. But the guitars are the dominant factor. Flaming guitars explode with teeth-grinding appeal one minute, then stray into glissando nebulas the next. The unpredictability of this melodic music is a thrilling aspect to the alliance these instruments maintain.
Yet, with all these dynamics, the music of Quarkspace possesses an ethereal calm, a dreaminess that carries the listener from their physical environment to regions of fancy, where the defining factors are only confined by the audience's imagination. - Matt Howarth, Sonic Curiosity
Quarkspace. Remember that name. Remember it well. Because today's space rock music conjugates with Quarkspace. If bands like Ozric Tentacles and Porcupine Tree gave back this musical genre its crown, Quarkspace will soon eclipse them.
Quarkspace is Chet Santia on bass and vocals (very ethereal : is he singing or just breathing?), Jay Swanson on keyboards, Dave Wexler and Darren Gough on guitars and Paul Williams on drums. The band records since 1996. First, four cassette releases in 1996 and 1997 under the title Spacefolds which present studio improvisations. Then, in 1996, an eponymous CD, this time focusing on shorter songs. Both projects were very promising and Quarkspace definitely earned their place among the American space rock newcomers like Alien Planetscapes and Architectural Metaphor.
But today Quarkspace rises above all of them and shines. The new space rock star. Live Orion has been recorded live in October 1997 at the Orion Space Rock Festival (for all but one track). The album showcases Quarkspace at their best, in mindblowing shape and in all their diversity. The CD contains live versions of some of the songs on their first CD, revisited and far better than the original versions (like "Air" and "In My Lost Mind"), new songs, space improvisations (of course!) and even some improvs released in the Spacefolds series that the guys learned and transformed (such as the beautiful "Faerienot Space"). Over an hour of a magic and trippy space rock. Quarkspace cooks an ethereal music, smooth, all in textures and moods, nothing like the twirling rhythms of Ozric Tentacles. A gentle piano, a tiptoed bass line, some guitar licks. A perfect sound. Pure pleasure. Sit back, relax, enjoy. - Francois Couture, Delire Musical
The Live Orion CD illustrates how important it is to experience this type of music in a live environment, and how this band in particular shines when performing live. Quarkspace is somewhat unique among the current crop of spacerock bands in that they aren't from the hard edged Hawkwind camp, nor can they be firmly categorized in the dreamier ambient space camp. What stands out on this CD is a band whose roots are very much in the classic jam rock camp, but add enough elements of space in their sound, and ambience in the atmosphere to make them a space band. When they really start to cook they have been compared to the Allman Brothers, and there are tracks here that feature this sound. Like the Allmans, each instrument is clearly distinguishable from the others, yet all play cooperatively to produce some kick ass rock music that has the added benefit of blasting the listener into the cosmos. On other tracks I'm reminded of the the glory days of psychedelic stretching out, but with a higher level of instrumental proficiency than was characteristic of many bands in that genre.
Vocal numbers are interspersed with the instrumentals and Chet Santia's voice reminds me of a harder edged Peter Gabriel. This
release will mark the first Quarkspace vocal numbers since their 1996 debut CD, and those familiar with that release should note how the music, though in a "song" context, is often just as busy and interesting as on the purely instrumental tracks. For those not familiar with Quarkspace this live performance is an excellent starting point. Highly recommended. - Jerry Kranitz, Aural Innovations
Church of Hed is the solo electronic space prog project of Quarkspace drummer/synthesist, Paul Williams. RIYL: Floyd, the
Orb, Stereolab -- Quarkspace is an American band together since the mid 80s. Known for combining spacerock and electronics with folk and progressive songwriting, their influences straddle the American and English psychedelic scenes of the late 60s with more modern influences....more
