Spacemen 3 (Pop Shoegaze)

Spacemen 3, or the Sound of Confusion. Spacemen 3 is an English band, formed in Rugby in 1982 and split in 1991. Its leaders? Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman) and Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom). In that time, Spacemen 3 released 4 records: Sound of Confusion (1986), The Perfect Prescription (1987), Playing With Fire (1989) and Recurring (1991). Then, after the band split, its members went on to leave their mark on the history of English music. Just look: Spiritualized, Spectrum and many more, all bands born from the break-up of Spacemen 3. But let us rewind a little. This article is about The Perfect Prescription (1987), in my view the Spacemen’s best. Originally released on Glass Records, it was reissued many times on Fire Records (most recently in 2013) and Genius Records (the 1995 version is probably the one with the best mastering).

The Perfect Prescription is the fruit of 8 months of recording at VHF Studios. Reworked many times, the decision was finally made not to give the guitars too many overdubs so that the sound could be reproduced live. In that sense, The Perfect Prescription is less shoegaze than Spacemen 3’s other records, which marked a real evolution of the genre. Yet The Perfect Prescription keeps many of this musical style’s codes, with its long psychedelic sets, its screaming guitars and its voices used like instruments. That is what makes The Perfect Prescription a particularly brilliant album: the ambiguity in its making, which gives rise to tracks that are very hard to make your own. And Spacemen 3 was a band with a sense of history. Its two founding members never stopped working on their music with the aim of creating/reviving movements. So you get Acid Rock, Proto Punk, Shoegaze, Brit Pop…

Spacemen 3’s sound is above all defined by deliberately very primal drums that clash with super noisy guitars. But The Perfect Prescription does not play in the same register. This album is the counterpart of The Jesus and the Mary Chain’s Stoned & Dethroned (1994). An acoustic guitar takes up all the space, and the band seems calmer than on its first album, Sound of Confusion.

The album opens with the track that leans toward the noise and punk of the band’s other albums, namely “Take Me to the Other Side“. A must-listen, so representative is it of what Spacemen 3 is. It makes clear that the band’s psychedelic shoegaze is anything but generic. Its many interludes break up a fine creation. Next comes “Walkin’ With Jesus“. Its acoustic guitar, the organ, its little flights, Kember’s nonchalant voice, here is Spacemen 3’s first anthem. “Ode To Street Hassle” is one of the most obvious tracks on The Perfect Prescription. Spacemen 3 resume walking with Jesus in a spoken track that would become one of their main hits. And it is impossible to skip the 10 minutes of “Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation (Flashback)“. It is… epic.

“Come Down Easy” is an ambivalent track in which the acoustic guitar is doubled by a drone that gives it all the intrigue the Spacemen always sought to create. It vibrates. In my view one of the band’s best creations, this track grips you with its wholly special balance. And then “Call The Doctor” closes the original version of this album, against a backdrop of a fatal dose of ecstasy. This track has no connection with JJ Cale’s fabulous version (here), but it is certainly every bit as good. For the first time on the album, Spacemen 3 let the guitar take the lead, holding a hypnotic central place. Note the presence of “Soul 1“, a bonus track too majestic to be left aside. The blend of stretched-out horns and synth perfects more than 5 minutes whose spleen is utterly immense. Peter Kember described The Perfect Prescription as ‘a concept album’, adding ‘it’s about our better and worse experiences with drugs‘. “Soul 1” on its own conveys that whole statement.

Spacemen 3’s story is also made up of many singles and absolutely fabulous covers, like those of Suicide (“Che“) or Mudhoney (“When Tomorrow Hits“). I cannot encourage you enough to dig through the band’s discography, it holds so many flashes of genius. One last example? “Things’ll Never Be The Same“. Put this music on once night has fallen, comfortably seated on a sofa. Your brain will turn inside out, the world of Dorian Gray will then be yours and everything that made the wild ’80s nights so powerful will suddenly be reborn. Spacemen 3 is one of the greatest English psychedelic bands of all time. Today largely forgotten by the scene, tomorrow a legend among legends.

Related links:

Article on The Jesus and the Mary Chain

List of ALL the anachronique articles