Hedersleben - Orbit

Among supporters including Hawkwind co-founder Nik Turner and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins, Hedersleben are this cross between psychedelic adventures with a space rock expedition. This is a band that just took me by surprise. Not only that it’s very good and very interesting, they have released three albums from 2013 to 2015. This year, they have released their fourth album entitled, Orbit on the Purple Pyramid Records.

The band launched in the outskirts of Quedlinburg, Germany which is a town situated north of the Harz Mountains, located on the district of Harz of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany by UK Subs guitarist, Nicky Garratt. He also worked with Nik Turner on the Space Gypsy album four years ago. The fourth album is a story structure dealing with a great elliptical orbit around our solar system around the sun extending the reach of the Kuiper Belt.

Which is called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, a circumstellar disc beyond the planets extending Neptune. Now while I’m very new to the band’s music, it can be heard in two films starring Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, The Doors, Species, Dishonored) the action heist film Diamond Cartel and the horror revenge thriller, The Devil’s Domain. The music dives towards the adventures that made me realize, this is a band I’m might be interested in checking out.

Hedersleben with three of their albums released, they featured new singers. This one features vocalist and violinist Alicia Previn who is the daughter to conductor Andre Previn and a member of The Source Family. Keyboardist Jai Young Kim returns from The Fall of Chronopolis returns to the cosmos to bring both the Organ, Mellotron, and the Moog for another adventure with the band.

Also featuring the rhythm section of Drummer, Percussionist John Darren Thomas and Bassist Doc Miller. When I was listening to Orbit, I was completely near the edge of my seat to be a part of their take of the Millennium Falcon to be set and geared up to go into outer space and heading towards other planets through their music.

The epic chord rising intro on History of Light brings essence of Blood Ceremony’s organ roar with a cosmic voyage meeting into psychedelic hard rock atmosphere while the opener, Judas Star has the Bass and Organ ascending the countdown for lift-off as both violin and guitar share the same melody with an alarming sound for the first 2 minutes and 37 seconds.

It’s this cross between String Driven Thing meets the early Moody Blues meets Van Der Graaf Generator’s Pawn Hearts-era while the Mellotron and Moog set the futuristic scenario before Alicia is speaking through a gigantic megaphone as the lyrics are essence to the mind between Michael Moorcock and Blue Oyster Cult’s Eric Bloom as if they’d worked together again since Fire of Unknown Origin.

Rarefied Air is a spacey atmospheric mid-fandango groove. Nicky’s guitar riffs are similar to the opening introduction to Malaguena as the vocalizations are cool, relaxed before the Moog sets the jump to light-speed by heading towards the star system. Apogee is the Organ and the Moog revving up as Nicky, Doc, and John channel the styles between Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come, Amon Duul II, and Sabbath approaches. 

While the beat is slightly molto, it has a bright energy and it continues with the quest as the closing track, Perigee gives Doc Millar moving from Bass to Classical Guitar. It’s this cold and haunting finale instrumental as Birds chirp through the sunset as the double-tracking on the guitar sees Doc go back and forth through his instrument.

Again, I’m new to the world of Hedersleben’s music, but this shows a very interesting concept by travelling towards the galaxy. Orbit is worth exploring and recommended if you admire the space rock sounds as prepare yourself to hurtle through the cosmos with Hedersleben.