GALAXY QUEST

Three heavenly bodies from the eternal J. Spaceman. By Andrew Male.

THE IGNITION

Spacemen 3 ★★★★★

Playing With Fire (FIRE, 1989)

Recorded as the band began its protracted disintegration, this is the pinnacle of the Spacemen 3 drone rock sound, an alchemical transformation of Jason Pierce and Pete Kember’s creative misery into exquisite euphoric melancholy. Songs such as How Does It Feel? and Lord Can You Hear Me? blend English LSD whimsy with elemental gospel tropes and eerie melodic purity, while Revolution exists somewhere between the summer of ’67 and the student riots of ’68.

THE LIFT-OFF

Spiritualized ★★★★★

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (DEDICATED, 1997)

“What is Spiritualized used for?” read the prescription that came with the album’s original pharmaceutical-style packaging. “Spiritualized is used to treat the heart and soul.” A 70-minute experiment in the forms of gospel, soul, country and rock’n’roll as methods of pain relief and psychedelic release. Chaotic, beatific, visceral, and transcendent – too vast in its scope and achievements to be mistaken by anyone sensible for a mere break-up album.

THE SPLASHDOWN

Spiritualized ★★★★

Songs In A&E (COOPERATIVE MUSIC/SANCTUARY, 2008)

The first in Pierce’s infirmary diptych, joined by Sweet Heart Sweet Light some four years later. Although composed largely before his near-death encounter with double pneumonia, in its post-production use of ventilator sounds, the angelic ‘Harmony’ interludes, Pierce’s audibly frail vocals, and prescient numbers Death Take Your Fiddle and Don’t Hold Me Close, it is an album suffused in the pale terminal light of sweet goodnights and final resting places.