Midlands space-rock trailblazers Spiritualized are set to re-release their first four LPs, beginning with their 1992 debut Lazer Guided Melodies. The series of reissues – dubbed the Spacemen Reissue Program by frontman Jason Pierce – will also incorporate Pure Phase (1995), Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (1997), and Let It Come Down (2001) on dates yet to be confirmed. Lazer Guided Melodies will be re-released on April 23rd via Fat Possum Records on standard black vinyl, limited edition white vinyl and CD, complete with a selection of new artwork.
*** Spaceman Reissue Program ***
Lazer Guided Melodies – the classic debut album reissued with new artwork on double 180-gram white vinyl
And new Lazer Guided Melodies merchandise based on the original, vintage designs
Available to pre-order now via https://t.co/bux8oadRqd pic.twitter.com/JnpPdLXOoo
— Spiritualized® (@officialSpzd) February 24, 2021
Emerging from the creative ashes of Jason Pierce’s former group, cult psychedelic rockers Spaceman 3, Spiritualized swiftly marked their arrival on the burgeoning shoegaze scene with a statement debut LP. Lazer Guided Melodies was described at the time as “21st Century gospel” by legendary British music journal Melody Maker, while Sputnik Music would later call it a “mesmerizing journey into another dimension“, adding that “the best way to understand this album is to suspend reason and to momentarily leave the left side of your brain at the door.”
The Rugby outfit would go on to enjoy their greatest commercial and critical success with their third studio record Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space five years later. The LP – with a title that referenced a quote from Norwegian philosopher Jostein Gaarder – secured a number #4 berth in the Official UK Albums Chart, and pipped critics’ darlings Radiohead and The Verve to win NME’s Album of the Year award for 1997.
In a press release accompanying the Spacemen Reissue Program announcement this week, Pierce said “The last Spacemen 3 record was under-realized to me. When I listen back to that stuff it sounds like somebody finding their way. There was a lot of ideas but no way to put them into a space that would make them all work. So, there was a huge freedom forging over the last Spacemen 3 record and when Spiritualized started it was like, ‘OK it’s all yours. Go’…”
He added: “We recorded the tracks in the studio near my flat which was a place where they predominantly recorded advertising jingles and it’s where we made all the Spacemen 3 records, but then the recordings were taken to Battery Studios in London, to explore a more professional way of making music… Once I approached that way of doing things I opened up a whole world and I was astounded that somebody could take those tracks and turn it into the record it became.”
The Warwickshire group have undergone numerous personnel changes over the year – there are a combined 20 current and former members of Spiritualized – but the current line-up (Pierce, John Coxon, Doggen Foster, Thomas Wayne, Kevin Bales, Tom Edwards) have been firmly in post for over a decade. Over the last nine years, the dream pop collective have released two studio albums: 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light and 2018’s And Nothing Hurt.
