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The Hidden Moon

by Quarkspace

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1.
Prince 07:06
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
The Circle 07:04
10.
Nebula 06:59
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12.
13.
Park Rangers 08:37
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No. 5 03:19
15.
Teather 08:28

about

During a newspaper interview in 1999, I cracked about how the death knell for most 70s bands was the release of a live album and a double album. Well, after Live Orion, here we were getting the latter out of the way with The Hidden Moon.

Some of our finest moments lurk inside here (for me it is Spaceman -> The Circle). It's a long, deep album and should be chopped up into bits and savored. Or listen to it all at once. There's no filler, since we had to cut tracks to fit it onto two 70+ minute CDs. The Hidden Moon features strong doses of all three sides of Quarkspace:

song: The Circle, Where Galaxies Collide, Somebody Else's Dream

space: Krautball's Demise, Nebula

loop: Starbridge Freaks, Astral Grinder, Park Rangers

The album has been sold out for nearly two decades, but you can still hear it on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music etc. And now its finally available for download on Bandcamp. The higher price reflects the nearly 150 minutes of music. A quad-album vinyl release is not likely!

credits

released August 13, 1999

Chet Santia: Bass, Guitar, Vox
Jay Swanson: Keyboards, Synth
Paul Williams: Drumming, Synth, Keyboards, Loops, Vox
Darren Gough: Guitar
Dave Wexler: Guitar

Special Guests

Stan Lyon: Guitar (track 15)

All Music by Quarkspace
Produced by Lance Starbridge
Cover art by David Gulotta

REVIEWS

This 1999 double CD features 146 minutes of Quarkspace, rocking the studio with their powerful space music, bringing the wonders of the cosmos to cavort on earthly turf and in human ears.

Although the searing guitars still play an integral part in this astral (mostly instrumental) music, the keyboards have expanded to boldly play where no man has gone before. The percussives have adopted a lusher flair, driving the melodies with a primal urgency. Even the bass has become more prominent, thundering with sensuous vibrations, underpinning the cosmic tuneage with the presence of a solid foundation, while counterparting the organic drumming with ricocheting e-perc.

These instruments have learned to cooperate even more than before, blending and melting into a fusion of sound that takes on an extraterrestrial life of its own. The influence of Hawkwind (circa "Space Ritual") has risen to infect the jam-aspects of the compositions, with spiraling guitar riffs and swirling synthi timbres. Whether the music is a surging celestial jam or a boiling dose of space funk or a melancholy ballad or a stretch of nebulous ambience, Quarkspace deliver with unbridled passion and relentless stamina.

This is not the type of music that looks up at the sky, it becomes the sky. The songs expand to fill the sky, saturating the void with their astral sense of wonder. This music visits other worlds, merging with the mysteries that dwell beneath alien sunlight. The tuneage breathes these foreign atmospheres, transmuting the unfamiliar noble gases into shimmering mists of sonic transcendence, then exhales these melodies into the listeners' auditory canals. Your head becomes the music's final destination, a voyage that has spanned galactic vistas to return to whisper its gathering of secrets in your ear. - Matt Howarth, Space.com


In my goal to discover new and interesting sounds for lovers of progressive rock, I present you the last album -a double CD - of this wonderful band from Columbus, Ohio, Quarkspace. The line-up is Chet Santia (bass, acoustic guitar, voices), Jay Swanson (synthesizers), Dave Wexler (guitar), Paul Williams (synthesizers, drums, loops, voices), and Darren Gough (guitar).

Their music core is cosmic space rock, to which brushstrokes of krautrock, progressive, techno and blues are added. This is their fourth official CD, in a discography that includes an impressive first CD Quarkspace, a second live album Live at Orion that shows their improvisation capabilities, and a third minor album of improvisations Spacefolds 5. In the past, the group also published a series of four cassettes of improvisations. Dave and Paul have also released an album as National Steam in 1998, more spacey and less complex.

After this brief introduction to Quarkspace, let us now analyze their last CD, The Hidden Moon. it has a really beautiful cover, with pictures from the artist David Gulotta, on a very similar style to that of Dalí, which already provides us an indication of the musical path these gentlemen walk by. As I have already mentioned, it is a double CD, with more than 145 minutes of music. Obviously, it is difficult to maintain a constant clarity and quality of ideas for this long time, and this is in my opinion the only global defect of this album. Nevertheless, it is very easy to condense in one hour a selection of the best moments, which would really deserve 5 stars.

In my opinion, it is worthwhile to highlight the easiness with which these four musicians move around different styles, being driven by music, without any hurry, improvising, and always maintaining interesting and complex structures. Their music presents clear influences, but they are perfectly integrated to create their own sound and advance a step forward.

We can distinguish four different styles in the 15 tracks of this CD, always with the departure point being an omnipresent space, cosmic sound:

1) In my opinion, the less attractive songs are those that include a more techno-electronic influence (as The Orb, Orbital, or Ozric Tentacles). The space-sound base is fabulous, with a spectacular work of the different musicians, but my brain is not able to mix the sound of the samples and loops with that of the remaining instruments. Nevertheless, I believe that we can expect from them that in the next CD this amalgam of sounds will be more precise. The best examples in this album are "Starbridge Freaks" and "Park Rangers".

2) A second group of songs adds to the stew influences from krautrock, as that of the best Can or Amon Duul. In this album, the best example is "Krautball's demise", a fabulous song with heart-breaking guitars, keyboards that invite you to get up and dance and jump and fly, and a happy bouncing bass/drums sound.

3) Many tracks take us on a trip into the interstellar space flirting with psychedelia and blues, with well used influences from Hawkwind, the first Tangerine Dream, Soft Machine or even the Meddle - Atom Heart Mother period of Pink Floyd. Worth highlighting are "Nebula", and the monstrous and long (19 minutes) "Where Galaxies Collide", a marvelous sample of head music. Listen to this in darkness and silence, and fly away….

4) Finally, in each album of the group, some delicate and brilliant progressive melodic jewels are included: those songs in which Chet Santia sings. A sensual and ethereal voice, similar to that of sweetest Peter Gabriel (sometimes I could believe Peter is in my room) or Nick Drake, in wonderful mid-tempo songs -please enjoy the 13 minutes of "Somebody else's dream" and "The Circle". In these pieces guitars move smoothly with slide guitar riffs and passages on the style of Camel or King Crimson, keyboards drift and create a pleasant ambient base, while the rhythm section plays in our ears. These songs, that at first, surprise us for being far from the habitual style in the group, are jewels.

In conclusion, Quarkspace has shown again their capacity to advance musically, with a very interesting album that although ends up being too long (almost two and a half hours of music), will transport you to the space and the stars. An advice, go to their web, listen to the sound samples, and buy their albums (firstly the first and the last one). You will not be defrauded. - Jose Nafria, Progvisions


Quarkspace has had a hefty output of music since 1996, but The Hidden Moon is the first of what the band considers a regular studio release since their first self-titled CD. And speaking of hefty, this is a 2-CD set packed with over 70 minutes of music on each disc. From Columbus, Ohio, the band's lineup has remained stable and still includes Paul Williams on drums and keyboards, Jay Swanson on keyboards, Darren Gough on guitar, Dave Wexler on guitar, and Chet Santia on bass and vocals. Guest Stan Lyon adds guitar to "Teather" and has also added some fine work to a couple recent live Quarkspace performances.

Eternity's Jest Records' motto is a dedication to freaky sounds and The Hidden Moon is packed full of all things freaky, dreamily flowing, and even fun. Right from the beginning we hear "attention alien aircraft!", and the disc one opens with "Prince", a song that has been a staple of the band's live shows for a while. This is a classic Quarkspace journey packed with soaring cosmic space guitar licks that are like a musical meteor shower. Among the other highlight tracks on disc one is "Starbridge Freaks" which features the band experimenting more with samples. The song opens with a wild techno sample that provides the focus around which the band explores. "Starbridge Freaks" blends very smoothly into "Bone's Blues For Planet X", something a little different for Quarkspace and one of my favorites on this set. The song is aptly titled as this is indeed cosmic blues. The song is a Wexler showcase as he trips along a solar Mississippi Delta. Things build to high levels of intensity with wildly shooting synths accompanying the space blues. "Krautball's' Demise" is, at 17 minutes, the epic of disc one. I'm a bit ambivalent about this track. On the one hand it's a classic Quarkspace jamming journey with great sounds. But for this listener it doesn't quite justify it length. Too much else on Hidden Moon succeeds in retaining the Quarkspace sound while managing to establish a sense of individuality.

Disc two opens strong with "I Bet He's Looking For The Spaceman", an ambient journey that feels like a quiet overture to a space symphony. True to the title we hear a sample of a boy's voice saying "I bet he's looking for the spaceman!". In the last few minutes the pace picks up a bit. A rapid fire percussion beat is accompanied by swirling synths and various other intermingled sounds. The pace continues to pick up until VERY abruptly cutting out... but we are led oh so smoothly into the "The Circle", a vocal track I'll touch on shortly.

Other highlights from disc two include "Nebula", another ambient journey piece but with more of Wexler's bluesy guitar giving it a bit of a Pink Floyd sound. On "Park Rangers" the band is once again world soccer's spacerock poster boys. Computerized electro samples lay the groundwork for this bouncy tune and Eternity's Jest's dedication to the freaky is most prominent. "No. 5" is a similar electro sample based tune but even more freaky. Actually it sounds somewhat like Bill Nelson from his post-Be Bop Deluxe electro experimental days. Disc two's epic is "Where Galaxies Collide", a spacerock opera of sorts that does really rock out as it moves through a number of movements and tells its tale.

Finally, the band's melodic side is present on Hidden Moon as well. "Somebody Else's Dream" and "The Circle" are standout vocal tracks, and Santia's acoustic songs getting quarkasized are a trademark of the Quarkspace sound. I had long known Chet does solo acoustic shows but only heard him for the first time recently. His is a melancholy Nick Drake style (though he hasn't heard Drake) and this type of dark, laid back, but passionate song style works well in the Quarkspace universe. "The Circle" in my opinion has the strongest melody of any Quarkspace vocal track to date. Wexler plays what sounds like a space country slide guitar and combined with organ sounds great. The first time I heard this tune was live with the Solar Fire Lightshow swirling on the band so it's really stuck with me.

A word about listening to Hidden Moon... to fully benefit from all that is happening on this disc I highly recommend headphones if you don't have a really good stereo. I heard it probably a half dozen times (NOT a good stereo) before putting on the headphones and it was like hearing it for the first time. - Jerry Kranitz, Aural Innovations


Quarkspace approaches space rock in a way that is all its own. A lot more laid-back than Alien Planetscapes or Ozric Tentacles, Quarkspace's music is supportive, leaving listeners to travel at their own paces, rather than pushing them in the backs with a hallucinatory and insistent beat. With Quarkspace, space rock flirts with psychedelia and even a sort of new age at times. The Hidden Moon, a two-CD set, is the band's second complete studio effort (as opposed to the Spacefolds series that presents works in progress), released three years after the band's eponymous debut. There is less electronic percussion on this album than on previous efforts like Spacefolds 5 or Live Orion, and also fewer vocals, which is a good thing. Chet Santia's voice, although getting better with time, remains peculiar, and it can indispose an otherwise benevolent listener. With its 150 minutes, The Hidden Moon has a lot to offer, but the second CD is stronger than the first. There are a few longish tracks on disc one, songs that don't live up to expectations ("Somebody Else's Dream" sounds like it'll never end), but most tracks on disc two are must-haves. "The Circle" recalls Pink Floyd's "Fearless"; "Park Rangers" introduces some electronic elements to the Quarkspace sound (something hinted at on Spacefolds 5 but better integrated here). The magnum opus of this set is found in "Where Galaxies Collide," an 18-minute epic that stands as a hybrid of space rock and prog rock. This is not an extended jam. Changes are numerous, the atmosphere is torrid, the trip is perfect. This track has the word classic written all over it. If Quarkspace's music doesn't have the dancing pulse of Ozric Tentacles, it also doesn't have the repetitiveness of the latter. The Hidden Moon established the band as one of the leading space rock outfits of the late '90s. As a bonus, the gatefold package is covered with colorful paintings by David Gulotta. - Francois Couture, All Music Guide

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Church of Hed/Quarkspace Columbus, Ohio

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

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