Spiritualized

May 27th Spiritualized came out with their new album Songs in A & E. After 5 years without new work the album is getting much hype. I have only been able to locate one new song on seeqpod. It is Soul on Fire and the first track in the que below. The Pitchfork review gives the album an 8.4 rating out of 10 which was enough to slot them in their best new music section. The following is a qoute from the Pitchfork review:

"Pierce is again walking mopey, orchestral, minimalist rock out to the margins of taste and messing with your head all over the place. And this time he does it with a shit-ton of sonic subtlety."

NME gives the ablum 8 out of a possible 10, a very similar rating. The review gives very high praise to the album. The comments found by readers indicate a strong disagreement with the 8 rating. They are demanding a perfect 10.


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Wikipedia:

Spiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce (who often goes by the alias J. Spaceman) after the demise of his previous outfit, space-rockers Spacemen 3. The membership of Spiritualized has changed from album to album, with Pierce - who writes, composes and sings all of the band's material - being the only constant member. Spiritualized have released five studio albums. The best known and most critically acclaimed of these was 1997's Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, which NME Magazine made their Album of the Year.

[edit] Biography

Jason Pierce, 1998Following a major breakdown in relations between Spacemen 3 co-frontmen Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, the group's bassist Will Carruthers, drummer Jonny Mattock and guitarist Mark Refoy decided to form a splinter group, before persuading Pierce to join alongside local friend Steve Evans to create Spiritualized. The band took their name from an adaptation of the text on the back label of a bottle of Pernod. Due to formation from a majority of Spacemen 3 members, a technical clause meant that Spiritualized had to maintain the Spacemen 3 recording contract with Dedicated Records.

The first Spiritualized release, in 1990, was a cover of The Troggs' "Anyway That You Want Me"; the record heralded the official split of Spacemen 3 following contractual wrangles over the band's name and its use in Spiritualized-related promotional material (initial copies of "Anyway That You Want Me" came with a Spacemen 3 logo on the sleeve).

Evans was replaced on keyboards by Pierce's then-girlfriend Kate Radley for the follow-up single, "Run"/"I Want You". A number of singles followed, before the band, in early 1992, released their first LP Lazer Guided Melodies, which had been recorded in Rugby over the previous two years. A second album, Pure Phase, was released in 1995, and a third Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space emerged in 1997 to notable critical acclaim and commercial success.

The musical style of Spiritualized relies heavily on sustained 'pedal' notes and drones. Lazer Guided Melodies and Pure Phase incorporate elements of the shoegazing style, drones and tremolo. The landmark Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space saw the influence of African-American gospel and blues beginning to show, while "walls of sound" modelled after the production styles of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson also made their presence felt. Such influences dominated Spiritualized's next album, Let It Come Down which included over 120 musicians. Amazing Grace favoured a more stripped down sound with the gospel, blues, and soul influences even more dominant than before.

After several years of work and a serious illness on Pierce's part in July 2005 [1], the forthcoming Spiritualized album was completed in September 2007 and is scheduled for an early 2008 release. [2] Pierce has also scored Harmony Korine's 2008 film Mister Lonely. ' On 21 February 2008, it was announced that the latest Spiritualized album is to be titled Songs in A&E and will contain 18 tracks. It will be released on May 26, 2008 in the UK, and on May 27, 2008 in the US. The first single from the album will be "Soul On Fire". The release will be backed by an Electric Mainlines UK tour in May.

Pierce is quoted as saying in a 2008 interview that Spiritualized was scheduled to play the CERN collider. "They asked us to do it! We were gonna play in it before they’d thrown the switch. But it was a timing thing—their timings didn’t coincide with ours."[3]


[edit] Band members

Jason Pierce, 1998Only Pierce remains from the original line-up of the band. Will Carruthers left the band in 1992 and now records as a solo project under the name Freelovebabies, Carruthers was replaced by Rugby musician Sean Cook from local band Electrahead. Mark Refoy departed in 1994 to concentrate on his own fronted band Slipstream. He was initially replaced by Kevin Cowen from fellow Rugby band The Darkside, before Cowen himself left to be replaced first by John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack, Betty Boo) and then later on by Julian Cope's former guitarist Michael Mooney (Coxon returned to replace Mooney following his eventual departure). Mattock played in The Breeders for a spell (during a lull in Spiritualized activities in 1991, he appears on the Safari EP) and left Spiritualized later in 1994 following the recording of Pure Phase, working as a session musician before joining Lupine Howl, he was replaced by Damon Reece. Kate Radley appeared for some initial dates promoting Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, before leaving the band in 1997 with a reported unspecified illness. ( Radley had married The Verve's singer Richard Ashcroft in 1995, however after a period apart, she had returned to Ashcroft by the time of her illness). Kate was replaced by Thighpaulsandra from Julian Cope's band Queen Elizabeth. Sax player Ray 'Moonshake' Dickaty was added to the lineup in 1997, and Gregg Hale (guitar) also augmented the band in 1997 and 1998.

Following promotional activity for Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, Sean Cook, Damon Reece and Michael Mooney threatened a strike in protest over low salaries and appearance fees. New contracts of employment were drawn up between Pierce and the musicians, and the same contracts were then used to fire them (to general disbelief by the music press at the time). In response, Messrs Cook, Reece and Mooney formed the ill-starred Lupine Howl. Ray Dickaty departed in 2003, quitting to play in the free-jazz Solar Fire Trio.

Retaining only keyboardist Thighpaulsandra (keyboards), Jason Pierce then debuted a new (and current) line up of Spiritualized, introducing classical percussionist Tom Edwards and former Julian Cope string arranger Martin Schellard on bass guitar. Completing the new Spiritualized line-up were guitarist Doggen of Brain Donor and the Julian Cope band, and drummer Kevin 'Kevlar' Bales, who is also ex-Julian Cope band. This line-up is currently has recently finished recording their newest album Songs In A&E in Nottingham and London.

Spiritualized