Send "Spacemen 3 " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Drownedinsound |
 After 20 years, it's hard to think of Spiritualized as anything other than a fully formed entity. Yet before they were even a glimmer in Jason Pierce's eye, there was Spacemen 3, his earlier band. Unlike Spiritualized, there were two captains on the ship, with Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom) sharing the limelight, the keyboards and guitars. Given Pierce's addiction saga, their motto of 'Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to' seems a little naive now, but helps to pinpoint their sound to the uninitiated. The psychedelic shadow of Roky Eriksson looms over their upbeat numbers, and their later efforts to widen their sound led them on to rich, deep drone experiments that foreshadowed shoegazing by a couple of years.The legacy of the band hasn't been easy to get away from for its main men. Pierce kept the Spaceman moniker, and reworked their songs and Christian themes in his later work. Kember gradually released the demos and odds and sods collections, keeping his inventive side sharp with Spectrum and E.A.R. Indeed, this is the sixth issue so far of The Perfect Prescription. That's not counting the double disc set of alternate versions, Forged Prescriptions, (a further unsubtle nod to the lifestyle choice the band was into at the time), or the two issues of Translucent Flashbacks, the singles collection from this era with a remarkably similar track listing. So even on this sixth attempt, there is still no definitive edition of this album, and with all of the different versions floating about, it’s arguable whether there ever could be....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Fifteen years ago, kids didn't listen to this kind of music on CD, cassette, vinyl; they listened to it on the tips of their tongues. It used to come on blotter paper, in tabs. When string-seducer Sonic Boom went into his Rainbow Guitarland of Doom, people's serotonin levels never recovered. The Perfect Prescription was like taking an acid bath in the dungeon of the mind: revelatory but solitary. On Forged Prescriptions, the Spacemen are trying to absorb us into their skin. This two-disc release consists of various alternative mixes, demos, and covers from Spacemen 3's Perfect Prescription recording sessions. According to the Boom, the majority of these mixes were "considered by us to be too hard to replicate live and therefore reduced for the original release." This is admittedly kind of absurd, like saying these tracks were too good to be listened to, but there is some validity in the sentiment. Whereas the disparity between the old and "new" mixes are perhaps subtle at best and practically indiscernible at worst, there is a difference in mood. If The Perfect Prescription often sounded extraterrestrial, it also just as often sounded like traditional Velvets-inspired indie rock. On Forged Prescriptions, though, the stratifications of guitar are even further attenuated to stunning single tones, the basslines float even more subliminally under the psychedelic mind-spinning noodling, and... well, okay, the drums are pretty much the same....full text |
| Thelineofbestfit |
| I am so glad this record is getting a re-release as maybe it will turn a new generation onto a band that were one of the pioneers of the new psychedelic drone rock of the mid to late eighties. There influence reaches far and wide with more recent bands like Icarus Line and the fantastic, and unfortunately now split, Ink and Dagger citing Spacemen 3 as an influence. Their influence stretches beyond British Indie territory. Before Jason Pierce (or Jason Spaceman) went all spiritual on us he was making drugged out waves with Spacemen 3. What is great about this band is they were so clearly apart from the rest. Modern powerful psychedelic at its best, setting the imprint for what was to come. Shoegaze is very much indebted to the work of this band. Pierce, along with Peter “Sonic Boom” Kember created something quite unique in their short career....full text |
Spacemen 3 lyrics
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