Spacemen 3
(Space Age)
And so the Spacemen return... on record, at least. Britain's Space Age Recordings, home to Sonic Boom's Spectrum and E.A.R. and overseer of numerous Spacemen 3 reissues and archival projects, offers up an intriguing little flashback of symphonic ecstasy. The cheekily-titled DJ Tones - though there may be "tones" here ripe for sampling, don't expect any house-thumping beatz - brings together five tracks (two of which have never been issued before) that perfectly recapture the cerebral S3 magic.
You know Spacemen 3: extant from the mid ‘80s to the early ‘90s, the Rugby, England, based outfit nicely bridged the garage/psych, postpunk and shoegaze eras with a heady mix inspired by - as evidenced by the covers they not only worked up but inhabited - the Velvets/Lou Reed, Suicide, the Stooges, the Red Krayola and other avatars of primal, cortex-uncorking tuneage. The band subsequently begat the aforementioned Sonic Boom's (aka guitarist Pete Kember) projects, as it did Jason Pierce's Spiritualized. In S3's critically hailed, timeless classic, 1987's The Perfect Prescription, the stirrings of those groups were clearly foreshadowed, although by some measures neither man, though issuing scores of brilliant post-S3 records, has ever fully matched that artistic peak. (There's a reason we judge certain albums "timeless" and "classic.")
DJ Tones revisits The Perfect Prescription via two songs indelibly associated with it, "Transparent Radiation" and "Ecstasy Symphony." The former, a Red Krayola song, is presented as a radical remix with guest Owen John's signature violin figure featured far more prominently than on the original album or on the posthumous Forged Prescriptions double-CD collection of demos and alternate takes; there's a shuddery, almost beatific quality that borders on gospel-blues, and the vocals, likewise, take on a hushed, reverent tone that's almost prayerful. The latter appears to be the same 9:05 version from Forged Prescriptions: shimmering, undulating, hissing, droning and, true its name, swooning in harmonic ecstasy, the pillowy instrumental denouement to an extended drug high.
Another old S3 fave makes a reappearance: a remix of "I Love You," originally from the band's 1991 swansong "Recurring." By this point Kember had developed an overt fondness for the motorik vibe of Krautrock legends Neu! and Can, and it shows in the throbbing, hypnotic pulse that runs throughout what's otherwise a richly melodic pop (love) song. Rounding things out are the aforementioned unreleased cuts: "Modulated Tones" which, truth-in-titling, is a brief (1 ½ minutes) composition comprising ebb-and-flow drone/fuzz guitar; and "These Blues," a wonderful slice of gently anthemic, Velvets-like dronepop featuring tom drums, maraca percussion, an echoey violin (it may actually be a treated guitar) humming along in the background, and an affecting, emotional vocal. "These Blues," in fact, is a hugely impressive addition to the S3 canon, and had it been issued back in the day as a single it would have stood a good chance of charting. Alas, ‘twas not to be, however, and Pierce would take the song with him, radically reworking it as a surging, churning psychedelic wall-of-sound for Spiritualized's 1995 album Pure Phase.
Housed in a cardboard slipsleeve boasting yellow-black "3" logo artwork guaranteed to make your eyeballs ache if you hold it too close to your face, DJ Tones is a limited edition of just 2000 copies, so run, don't walk, to your browser and hit that Space Age link. Come down easy, kids.
Standout Tracks: "Transparent Radiation," "These Blues" FRED MILLS
