Spacemen 3: Dreamweapon Vinyl 2LP

In perhaps the biggest space-rock-related troll of the 1980s, pre-acclaim Spacemen 3 members Peter Kember, Jason Pierce and Will Carruthers performed what was billed as “an evening of contemporary sitar music” (with not a single sitar anywhere in sight) for patrons of an art-house cinema in Brentford, West London (“108.9 on your dial!”) as they queued up for a film screening (you can even hear showtime announcements trickling out of the PA and creeping into the recording). They substituted the meditative drone of sitars with the sustained chords of their bass and guitars, with the occasional plucked string just to let you know they weren't dead where they stood.  The performance was so rudimentary that Carruthers later had this to say about it: “A monkey could have done what I had just done. A non-existent monkey could have done it.” This live recording serves as the original 44 minute Dreamweapon, and now covers the first two sides of this newly expanded reissue on Superior Viaduct. Sides C and D include studio scraps leftover from the recording of 1988’s Playing With Fire album: “Ecstacy Live Intro Theme,” “Ecstacy In Slow Motion” and the rustic, meditative “Spacemen Jam.” While Dreamweapon makes sense in hindsight with the context of their full catalog, it's still an outlier... more indicative of where Kember was headed than Pierce and Carruthers’ subsequent work as part of Spiritualized; mirroring aspects of the droney soundscapes Kember would conjure in his solo projects Spectrum and Sonic Boom and also in his work on Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper with Noah Lennox. Double vinyl pressing housed in deluxe tip-on gatefold sleeve w/ download card and printed insert containing detailed notes about the album’s creation by Will Carruthers.

• first time on vinyl since 1995
• double vinyl pressing
• housed in deluxe Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket
• printed insert w/ liner notes by Will Carruthers
• digital download included
• music label: Superior Viaduct 2018

reviewed by xxx 03/2018