SPIRITUALIZED

As indicated previously, even as Spacemen 3 was coming to an end, Jason Pierce was laying the groundwork for his new project. Certainly, Pierce's side of Recurring had much in common stylistically with Spiritualized's debut album.

"With the Spacemen, I was trying to chase finished products in my head," says Pierce. "I already had the sound of the song in my head, and I was trying to get that down on tape. With the Spiritualized thing, I don't chase any symphony; it's a lot looser, more freeform and new. You could call us 'minimal by design' with the sounds we were using."

Lazer Guided Melodies took two years to complete and finally appeared in early '92; already, Pierce was developing a reputation as a stickler for the right mix. Meanwhile, the group-Pierce, Carruthers, Mattock, Refoy, keyboardist/guitarist Kate Radley and, on occasion, horn and string players-had honed its sound through substantial gigging. A high-profile trek across America with the Jesus And Mary Chain and Curve took place in '92, and the band headlined Britain's Glastonbury festival the following year. Audiences embraced the group's miasma of blissed-out orchestral blues and gospel psychedelia.

A limited-edition live album, Fucked Up Inside, turned up in '93, and while the second studio album was being worked on, a series of EPs kept the band's profile high. The basic recording for Pure Phase went by fairly quickly for the core group (featuring new bassist Sean Cook). Pierce, however, fussed over the mixing until early '95. The final product not only boasted the unusual distinction of each stereo channel having separate mixes; its tripped-out ambiance and heady tonal rush suggested that Pierce's intention to craft a record simultaneously "of now, but out of time as well, to be emotional and fresh after 10 years' time" was a sound plan.

When the band toured the U.S., an American breakthrough seemed imminent. Pierce says that was never specifically the plan. "The band is not about success commercially," he says. "The goal is to be the best we can, and to keep going forward. A lot of bands have this weird cabaret mentality of playing the hits at the same time each night. We just do it naturally ... That's the only way you can make good music, to be very selfish about it and satisfy yourself."

(In the period following the release of Pure Phase, guitarist Refoy left Spiritualized to pursue a new project that had been brewing in his head for some months. "I got bored and needed an outlet," says Refoy. "I kind of made my position untenable, really, because I wouldn't work in tandem with Spiritualized." To that end, Refoy formed Slipstream. The band's eponymous debut LP in '95 was an upbeat, seamless blend of psychedelic guitar mantras, slide-guitar opuses and catchy pop ditties; a new album, to be mixture of live-in-studio and Q-base computer programs, is in the works. But Refoy is quick to distance Slipstream from his previous bands, stating for the record, "Just call it a factual link more than a musical one.")

Meanwhile, recording sessions for the third Spiritualized album commenced in late '95 with the band making a conscious effort to jettison, according to Pierce, "all the things, such as phase tones, drones and tremolos, that people recognize as 'our' sound." Two new members (drummer Damon Reece and guitarist Mike Moony) and one special guest (legendary piano player Dr. John) were recruited for the album. Due out in March, the LP is to be called Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space. Pierce casually describes it in terms of "'Spiritualized Rocket Shaped Songs,' since with each of the previous albums we were trying to say what kinds of sounds we were making at that point: 'Spiritualized Electric Mainline' or 'Spiritualized Lazer Guided Melodies.'"

He also offers no apologies for his meticulousness with the mixing. "That's why we have trouble," says Pierce. "It's like trying to remember why something was so spontaneous and immediate. Like now, for instance-trying to remember how something happened a year ago is hard to do. But I know it's there, and I know the mixes are there. There is the final mix that will work for the record, so I'm always chasing this sound around and using a lot of people. Just recently, I was working (on mixes) with Jim Dickinson in Memphis. Next week I'm off to L.A. for yet more mixing!

"It's too important to just knock a record out and then just throw it out there. I've always said we're trying to make music that affects people. We're trying to make records that stand the test of time. And I'm not putting out records that we've already done. I use the words 'Grandma's recipes'-that's what a lot of people are satisfied with. They don't want to push the boundaries, but just keep churning out the same things with minor changes. I wanna feel like we're going somewhere, you know? I want to create something that's bigger than what we're playing. Somebody wrote about us live once, 'It was like God playing feedback with a guitar behind the curtain.' Well, I want it to sound like it's several deities back there playing!"

No doubt Spiritualized was given the opportunity to feel like much lesser deities in August and September, when the band opened a series of dates for Neil Young & Crazy Horse. ("We went down well," says Pierce, "and I think there's a strong link musically between him and us-just his whole attitude, the fact that he's doing it for the music only.")

Pierce is clearly looking toward the future these days. "I'm not into hanging on to past glories," says Pierce. "I don't go out and say, 'Hey, I was in Spacemen 3!' I'm not even satisfied with what we're doing now-I want to do better! When I started to play music, I personally set out to be honest to myself. There's what one guy called 'the mathematics of music': when people understand the mathematics of how to write a song and they have enough ability to do something similar, and there's already a blueprint to use anyway. I think the stuff that affects me is stuff that disregards the mathematics. When you know what you're hearing is someone singing about their own life, writing about what they do and what they're about, but it relates to what you're about as well-that's the kind of stuff I go for."

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DARKSIDE & ALPHA STONE

When we last heard from Pete Bain, he had eased out of Spacemen 3 prior to the Playing With Fire sessions. After a few months in Rugby doing nothing, he ran in to a local friend, Nick Hayden, who invited him to sit in with his band. The Darkside had played on and off around Rugby since '86, even supporting the Spacemen on occasion. Bain accepted the invitation "with no real long term commitment," and a revitalized Darkside was soon gigging and cutting demos. The band's trajectory, however, was to be fraught with fits, starts and problems. First, an record deal was secured and the drummer promptly quit. Bain's old S3 crony Rosco Roswell turned up in time to record a single for the Situation Two label. Then, halfway into the first national tour, Hayden freaked out and didn't show up for a gig, leaving Bain to take the role of vocalist and The Darkside to "stumble on to the end of the tour" as a trio (Bain, Roswell and guitarist Kevin Cowan).

The band did recover enough to record All That Noise for Beggars Banquet. Reviewers immediately saluted the band's blend of classic garage and liquid psychedelia. Still, behind the scenes, things were in disarray, and Roswell didn't help matters when he announced he was abandoning his drumkit for keyboards. Craig Wagstaff was brought in on drums for a limited-edition live album, Psychedelicise Suburbia, and for the second studio album, 1992's Melomania. Then Cowan quit, Roswell decided he would become the new guitarist, an EP (Mayhem To Meditate) was released to little acclaim, demos for a third album were deemed "mediocre" by the record company and the band finally called it a day.

"Darkside was a bad combination of personalities," says Bain, "and money was the only reason we carried on. I got sick of the blatant greed in the band. Plus, Rosco's ego had grown to such a size he was intolerable and hell-bent on taking on a singer/songwriter role in the band ... Still, we did have some good times, and it gave me the opportunity to start writing songs."

After the Darkside splintered, Roswell trailed off into what one observer termed "a bunch of really lousy stuff." Word has it that Roswell has a new band, the Interceptors, that's currently gigging around Rugby, so time will tell. But, interestingly, it would be Bain who'd pick up where the Spacemen left off. He decided to concentrate on songwriting and playing guitar. After gigging informally for a few months with Rugby band the Supernova Quartet, he developed a promising relationship with bassist Andy Smith. When drummer Mark Carolan and guitarist Chris Brightwell expressed interest in playing with Bain and Smith, Alpha Stone was born. By mid-'96, a record, Stereophonic Pop Art Music, was in the bins; it was a wholly satisfying collision of outer-space head trips, drum-programmed/effects-drenched pop nuggets and good ol' droned-out psychedelia.

"Hopefully we can get a decent budget," says Bain of the band's immediate and long-term plans. "For now we use a portastudio. At present, we're putting together material for our next Bomp! record called Andromeda Skin, and it will be similar to the last one. My main aspiration is, simply, to be able to earn a living from our music."

Bain has also recorded with Kember for an upcoming Spectrum album, and audiences at recent Experimental Audio Research concerts may have spotted him supplying "vibrations" onstage. As Bain puts it with a laugh, "You know, after spending so much time in nowhere land, it's good to be back!"

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EXPERIMENTAL AUDIO RESEARCH & SPECTRUM

The path taken by Pete Kember has been an incredibly creative one solo-wise, with Spectrum and Experimental Audio Research. Prior to the Spacemen split, Kember issued the Spectrum album, a mixture of trademark drones and gospel-ish blues. (Its elaborate, pinwheel-styled sleeve commenced a tradition of innovative packaging aimed at the record collector; his Drone Dream EP was made available in myriad colored vinyls, various records have turned up as five-inch, eight-inch and 10-inch editions and E.A.R.'s recent Phenomena 256 album is available as a gatefold double-LP, featuring the provocative artwork of Anthony Ausgang.)

Following a couple of singles, Kember-under the moniker Spectrum-released Soul Kiss (Glide Divine) in mid-'92. Linked stylistically to his final work in S3, this album was a clear-headed expression of his appetite for blissful melodies, with a side order of drones. While Spectrum never toured much, it was still considered to be a collaborative effort between Kember, Richard Formby, Mike Stout, Scott Riley, Alf Hardy and Bain. Numerous Spectrum records appeared, including 1994's Highs, Lows And Heavenly Blows, that fully showcased Kember's songwriting skills.

Concurrent with Spectrum, Kember was experimenting in the studio with pure soundscapes and ambient textures, often utilizing no more than a battery of synthesizers and tape effects. Conceiving of a "loose affiliation of non-resident sound makers," Kember founded Experimental Audio Research in 1992 with the earliest recordings represented by contributions from Kevin Martin (God and Techno Animal), Eddie Prévost (AMM) and Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine); these were released (belatedly in '96, due to Shields' last-minute tinkering delays) as Beyond The Pale. Several other E.A.R. documents (with a shifting cast of members, some of whom have played in Spectrum) have also appeared, most notably Mesmerised and the just-released Phenomena 256.

Kember denies that he ever wakes up specifically with a "Spectrum mood" or an "E.A.R. mood." Says Kember, "With E.A.R., albums are a lot easier. I don't have to write songs-I can just go in and create sound sculptures. Whereas it takes me a year or two to do a Spectrum album. It's harder to write a good song than it is to create a good soundscape. I've always been better with sounds and tones and timbres and drones and such than with the mechanics of music and songwriting and chord structures."

Reviews of E.A.R. have tended to locate Kember and Co. in or near the ambient/isolationist post-rock dimension, with names like Scorn, Main, Seefeel and Aphex Twin often included among the comparisons. This suggests that whatever he's onto (and Kember says even he's not sure what), it promises to provide an intriguing journey-with the lines between E.A.R. and Spectrum no doubt blurring further.

Last summer, Kember toured E.A.R. across the U.S. with Bain, Tom Prentice on electric viola and Alf Hardy treating the sound. Opening the tour-and frequently joining E.A.R. onstage as well-was a who's-who of current ambient/space/post-rock outfits: Jessamine (with whom Kember recorded the Spectrum A Pox On You EP), Magnog, Bowery Electric, Bardo Pond, Tortoise, Windy & Carl, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Music Arch Deluxe. Kember clearly thrives on such interactions, saying, "I think of them as contemporaries. E.A.R. is a collaboration, and I do think that at certain times there seems to be more cross-pollination and experimentation than at others, when people want to do more than just write 'tacky pop songs.'"

Reprise Records just issued Spectrum's Songs For Owsley, an EP featuring no guitars-just vintage analog synths, theremin and vocoder; a full-length follow-up, Forever Alien, is slated for early '97. "There has always been that experimental side," says Kember. "Like 'Ecstasy Symphony' on Perfect Prescription or 'Phase Me Out Gently' on Soul Kiss. Through working on E.A.R. projects and focusing on the experimental side, I realized that seemed to be the way to go with Spectrum. A lot of it is inspired by the experimental music, tape manipulations and musique concréte of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, part of the BBC in the '50s and '60s, used to create radiophonic sounds and science fiction themes, with lots of theremin and primitive electronic gear. So my new stuff is quite otherworldly."

If that wasn't enough, there's more in the immediate pipeline: an E.A.R. project with isolationist/ambient artist Thomas Köner for the Drunken Fish label; and an E.A.R. analog synthesizer epic for Bomp! called 3D Dose (inspired by, as Kember puts it, "the benign, lots-of-information, aspects of the DMT trip.")

"People like Sonic understand the drug element," says Bomp!'s Shaw. "Not in a decadent manner, but in an opening of the windows of the mind and seeing from a different perspective. I think he sees that artistically, and was creatively challenged by the drug."

"What I'm trying to do," concludes Kember, "is achieve with more abstract sounds is to touch deeper moods and feelings through the music and sounds. What I always aimed for, what we aimed for in the Spacemen, was honesty and purity. Those were the criteria that were uppermost. Something about music is very spiritual, and it can be very fulfilling. There's few things better than to make music that can be spiritually fulfilling to people."

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As such, it's reasonable to conclude that, despite a personal and professional divergence some seven-odd years ago, both Pete Kember and Jason Pierce have remained philosophically very close. Pete Bain offers his opinion that while a Spacemen 3 reunion isn't very likely, "the hostility between Jason and Sonic has subsided over the years." In fact, had Kember and Pierce's schedules permitted, MAGNET was ready to pose them together for photos for this story.

"It was put to me that we'd be wearing boxing gloves," says Kember. "But I'd have wanted to do it with the gloves hanging off, about to shake hands!"

"I've said that it's what we're doing now that's important; the past is ended," says Pierce. "But yeah, I'd have done it."

[Thanks and a tip o' the space helmet to: Chris Barrus, Greg Shaw, Long Gone John, Nick Allport, Sid McCain, Bill Bentley and Jeff Honker, alien DJ extraordinaire.]