Stream: Spiritualized, ‘A Perfect Miracle’

Roy Jurgens on August 6th, 2018

0

When Jason Pierce led Brit psych-out vanguards Spaceman 3 during the ’80s they had a motto, “Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to.” Following their disbandment in 1991, Pierce brought that same work ethic to Spiritualized and it nearly killed him. Years of excess led to near deadly bouts with pneumonia, liver disease and hepatitis C, leaving him frail (he performs seated nowadays) and struggling to record. He has repeatedly stated in previous interviews that this may be his ultimate release. News also emerged of his turning down a $2.5 million offer to reform Spaceman 3, saying he has no interest in revisiting history.

Perhaps this is why “And Nothing Hurt” has such an all-encompassing finality about it. The Sept. 7 release, his eighth, is a set of hymns that wrap up all the best musical fragments Pierce’s vision conjures, the minimalistic orchestrations, the interwoven bursts of shimmery guitars, the plaintive horns, the rich layered drones, the neoclassical structures and the intimate and thoughtful verse. During the album’s creation, Pierce was having trouble recreating the soundscapes he was hearing during their live performances. So in response he did something rather odd, he locked himself into a room in his East London home and cranked out the entire album alone, onto a laptop, painstakingly learning to record digitally on the fly. This was followed by several weeks spent perfecting his sonic tapestry from behind an edit suite.

Lyrically, “And Nothing Hurt” comes across as a man who has made peace with his fate, good and band. There is a certain maturity throughout, but also notes of discomfiture and surrender. Pierce was never the type of artist to make a grand statement, but when he sings about inevitability and acceptance, there is a certain overwhelming melancholy that bursts through his cinematic soundscapes. If this is indeed his swan song, it is a fitting finale to an artist who dared to ruminate along the edges of Britpop, while never fully indulging in its encompassing clown car.

||| Stream: “A Perfect Miracle” and “Here It Comes (the Road) Let’s Go”