Spiritualized : Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space 1997

Spiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce (often known as J. Spaceman), formerly of 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 seven studio albums. The best known and most critically acclaimed of these is 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, which NME magazine named as their Album of the Year.
Following a 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 were asked by Pierce to form a new group alongside local friend Steve Evans, subsequently calling themselves Spiritualized. The band

took their name from an adaptation of the text on the back label of a bottle of Pernod.
"Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" is the third studio album by English space rock band Spiritualized, released on 16 June 1997. The album features guest appearances from the Balanescu Quartet, The London Community Gospel Choir and Dr. John.

( Spiritualized's third collection of hypnotic headphone symphonies is their most brilliant and accessible to date.
Largely forsaking the drones and minimalistic, repetitive riffs which have characterized his work since the halcyon days of Spacemen 3, Jason Pierce re-focuses here and spins off into myriad new directions; in a sense, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, with its majestic, Spector-like glow, is his classic rock album.

"Come Together" and the blistering "Electricity" are his most edgy, straightforward rockers in eons, while the stunning "I Think I'm in Love" settles into a divided-psyche call-and-response R&B groove, and the closing "Cop Shoot Cop" (with guest Dr. John) locks into a voodoo blues trance.

Lyrically, Pierce is at his most open and honest: The record is a heartfelt confessional of love and loss, with redemption found only in the form of drugs -- designed, no less, to look like a prescription pharmaceutical package, Ladies and Gentlemen is pointedly explicit in its description of drug use as a means of killing the pain on track after track.

Conversely, never before have the literal implications of the name "Spiritualized" been explored in such earnest detail -- the London Community Gospel Choir appears prominently on a number of songs, while another bears the title "No God, Only Religion," pushing the music even further toward the kind of cosmic gospel transcendence it craves.

A masterpiece.

 AllMusic Review by Jason Ankeny )

TRACKS

01."Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (I Can't Help Falling in Love)"    3:54
02."Come Together"         4:40
03."I Think I'm in Love"    8:10
04."All of My Thoughts"         4:36
05."Stay with Me"         5:08
06."Electricity"         3:45
07."Home of the Brave"         2:35
08."The Individual"         4:02
09."Broken Heart"         6:38
10."No God Only Religion"    4:21
11."Cool Waves"                 5:06
12."Cop Shoot Cop…"         17:00

Total length:    69:41

Label : Dedicated – DEDCD 034
Format : CD, Album
Country : UK
Released : 16 Jun 1997
Genre : Electronic, Rock
Style : Psychedelic Rock, Space Rock

FLAC  Size : 447 MB