Welcome to a feature where we sit down and talk to bands and artists about their latest albums to find out all about it. Today we speak to musician Scott Heller about the new albums from Øresund Space Collective

Hello nice to meet you, tell us about yourself!

I am from the band Øresund Space Collective (ØSC) but I also release solo music under the name Dr Space and have a duo in Portugal called Doctors of Space.  I have a PhD in Endocrinology and did diabetes related research for 25 years but now am focused on making music and helping others in the professional music studio I built in Portugal. 

Tell us about the new album

In the next few months I will have several albums out. ØSC just released a new DVD from the Kozfest 2023 in the UK in Feb 2025.  In March, a CD of a new project with my cousin, Craig Wall, called Quasars of Destiny will come out. It is 3 long tracks and quite Pink Floyd inspired instrumental music.  Doctors of Space will have a new CD called Fusing your Synapes in May, which like our last studio album is a collage of pieces put together into one 70min journey.  ØSC will have a new studio album out in April-May called Alotta Hella down in Estella, a double LP and double CD (with 2 bonus tracks). 

Favourite track in new album and why?

I think the opening track, Funkafide on the new ØSC is a fantastic 45min track.  Why?? Just lots of great elements in the music to keep it interesting over the 45mins, Awesome drumming and bass, cool synthesizers and lots of guitars!

Tell us a bit about the recording process, was it fun to do?

This new ØSC album was recorded in 2022 at my new studio.  There were a lot of people involved over the days so each track has different people playing.  We just set up, jam and record, we do not have any songs, it is all totally improvised music.  In this session which lasted 10 days we recorded 18hrs of music!!  Quasars of Destiny, since we are just two of us playing all the instruments, we had to do this in layers but some of it was recorded live as well.  Craig played the drums, guitar, bass, rhodes, congas, etc… and I did all the synths.. Fun..

What inspired the album name?

Hasse (our bass player), he came up with the name. It is inspired but all the music we got down and made that week and since the studio is in the Serra da Estrela mountains, it seemed like a cool name. For Quasars of Destiny, I came up with the CD title (Music to listen to while eating Planets) and Craig came up with the song titles.  As for the Doctors of Space album, Fusing your Synapes, it was just a phrase that came to me as I was assembling the music collage in the studio and then Dave made the amazing artwork afterwards. 

Tell us the idea behind the album cover?

The album cover is really fantastic. We work with this amazing and inspiring graphic artists from the UK named David Graham.  He has done more than 20 covers for us over the years. This one is back to a fantasy world of sorts after the more Picasso like Orgone Unicorn, our last studio album.  There is a lot to see in the artwork if you take the time…  Dave also did the amazing artwork for the new Doctors of space and Quasars of Destiny CDs as well. 

What one of your songs on the new album do you think will the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience?

Well, ØSC and Doctors of Space, we play all improvised music both live and in the studio so we do not rehearse or play any songs from our records!!!  Every show is a unique experience for the band and the audience..

Why should people listen to the album?

I think we are making some interesting music with a lot of depth and emotion and it is good music to turn your phone off, have a drink or a smoke and just flow into the music and disappear.  People need to relax more and this is a good way to get lost in the music and forget about the stressful and crazy world out there..

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