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Reviews

Quarkspace — The Hidden Moon
(Eternity's Jest EJ0020, 1999, 2CD)

Quarkspace — Spacefolds 5
(Eternity's Jest EJ0019, 1999, CD)

by Dane Carlson, Published 2000-05-01

The Hidden Moon Cover artSpacefolds 5 Cover art

The Hidden Moon finds Quarkspace dropping some of the hippie sound so prominent in Live at Orion. Instead the band play a lot more “electronica” i.e. rave type music. I know many will find this 2CD set a bit long in the tooth. Well don’t listen to it all! For me each disc has several outstanding tracks and I rarely sat down and listened to this as a single set, more like two individual albums. Some highlights: "Somebody Else’s Dream" is an intensely heartfelt song with acoustic guitar as the main instrument; "Krautballs Demise" is an apt title for this driving spacerock assault; "I Bet He’s Looking for the Spaceman" is another nice piece suitable for space travel, in fact they step up the synth textures on this one, building the proverbial wash of sound (something akin to Eno or Roach); "The Circle" is nice Pink Floyd styled track (Meddle anyone?) and all similarity is purely intentional. On "Nebula" again the backdrop is space, swirls and twirls, with some guitar eventually rising in the mix. The Hidden Moon retains many of the things I liked about Live at Orion; the use of acoustic guitars, lots of good old piano and a wide idea of what space music is. The music can be very spacey but then Chad’s vocals ground it, it’s a very unique sound (unique can be a good thing). The members really bring some different stuff into the mix. Listeners will find a wide variety of sounds here, from dance to trance to ambient and finally, spacerock. As for the Spacefolds release, well, this is the fifth in a series of digital bits. This is Quarkspace in creation. The band presents tracks showing the creative process at work and thus I found this lacking a center; it seems like unfinished bits of songs to me. The good bits were far outweighed by the mediocre. I think I played it once and moved on. Quarkspace is far better on the full-fledged release.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 19, 1999 releases

Related artist(s): Quarkspace, Paul Williams (Church of Hed)

More info
http://quarkspace.bandcamp.com/album/the-hidden-moon
http://quarkspace.bandcamp.com/album/spacefolds-5

 

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