Send "Spiritualized " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pichfork |
 "There's a hole in my arm where all the money goes," moans Jason Pierce at the start of "Cop Shoot Cop...", the 17-minute closer of Spiritualized's third album and lone masterpiece, Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space. His bedraggled voice drips through the words. He's an addict, but it's as if he realizes none of it mattered, anyway-- there's no salvation, no redemption, only cold life and sudden death. One cop lives to kill another cop. (Or a junkie survives only long enough to shoot up again.) The world keeps turning. Just like in his opening line, he quotes John Prine: "Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose."Since the 1997 release of Ladies and Gentlemen, Spiritualized have recorded three LPs, a handful of singles and EPs, and two double-disc sets called Complete Works. And the noise-gospel rock sprees that followed Ladies and Gentlemen cemented Spiritualized's reputation as one of rock'n'roll's best live spectacles. Pierce has also scored a Harmony Korine film, recorded a solo electronics album, collaborated with Spring Heel Jack, and sculpted a mesmerizing long-form drone record with pianist Matthew Shipp. He also almost died, in 2005 of bilateral pneumonia, only to recover and finish a remarkable return to form-- Songs in A&E. Yet Pierce unequivocally reached the height of his recorded powers with Ladies and Gentlemen. Bolder than the term Britpop might suggest, more focused than the term psychedelic might imply, Ladies and Gentlemen is one of the great triumphs of the 70-plus-minute CD era. Alternately chaotic and meticulous, thundering and quivering, Ladies and Gentlemen finds power in conflict-- between restraint and excess, addiction and isolation, and ultimately, love and hate. Like most any critical and commercial success, the record has now been repackaged with extra content-- specifically, in an ornate limited run meant for collectors and zealots. Ladies and Gentlemen backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> 's treatment as an edition of 1,000 numbered box sets from ATP is outrageous and elegant enough to match its contents: Each song comes on an individual black three-inch CD, the discs sealed inside black blister packaging, like the single tablets of a treatment regimen. Two discs of demos and isolated elements from the finished tunes-- those lonesome, blue horns blaring through "No God Only Religion", for instance-- get their own package, too, as does a personalized prescription signed by the doctor Jason Pierce himself. The liner notes take the form of lengthy instructions and technical specs for the medicine-- how the pills were made, who made them, and how they should be taken. "What is Spiritualized used for?" asks the silver metallic ink. "Spiritualized is used to treat the heart and soul."...full text |
| Bbc |
| Ladies and Gentlemen... was released in the early summer of 1997 and caused something of a buzz - because it's one of the best records ever made, anywhere, in the entire history and future of creation: FACT. J. Spaceman (Jason Pierce, ex-Spacemen 3) had a vision for this record. His vision was so strong that he bankrupted himself making it, as the record company refused to put up the funds to realise it. J's vision was to release this album as medication. Packaged as a giant pill in its own foil bubble-pack, with accompanying instructions about how to take the medication, the packaging - all too often missing these days, but still seen in Spiritualized's records - immediately told us what to expect: here was an album about swamping the harsh realities of life, about escaping from the day-to-day humdrum, about getting out of it to escape the pain. The thing about this album is that it absolutely demands your full attention. You cannot put this album on the stereo and listen to it as you review it. You cannot have this album on as you read, play the computer, talk with your friends or housemates, cook, make love, paint or draw....full text |
| Uncut |
| 1997 was a bumper year for British albums, but of all the big-hitters released that summer, only Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, more so than Radiohead's OK Computer, it's worth arguing, has gained in stature, its hallowed reputation buffed by constant praise. Between June and September of that year, as if buoyed by New Labour's demolition of the Tories, a handful of pumped-up groups looked to deliver on Britpop's golden promise. But when lad-rock's Stella-and-coke high eventually wore off, it became transparently obvious that the macho bluster inflating the Verve's Urban Hymns, Oasis' Be Here Now and The Fat Of The Land by The Prodigy had masked a lot of pretty hollow music. Ladies And Gentlemen., by contrast, might as well have been beamed down from Saturn. Spiritualized had form, of course, but compared to 1995's heroically indulgent Pure Phase, this was a heartwrenchingly honest record on which a wounded Jason Pierce seemed to weave the voodoo soul of New Orleans blues around the shimmering elegance of Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, fashioning a timeless psychedelic odyssey....full text |
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