Spacemen Are Go! - Fun & Educational Space-Themed Toys for Kids | Perfect for Playtime, Learning & Birthday Gifts

Back before Jason Pierce left Spacemen, formed Spiritualized, and created Laser Guided Melodies, one of the most fantastic CDs ever to grace my stereo system, there was the combination of him and Peter Kember. In 1984 that duo connected with Morris and Bain, and Spaceman 3 was born.This was music with a sound all its own. It was not funky, or full of blaring guitars, or light and poppy. Instead, they forged a new style of melody, one that was low, chord-rich, relaxed, and could draw you in. The final piece on this CD, Suicide, is a 16 minute long drifting relaxation that wraps its tendrils around you.Spaceman Are GO! has an intriguing history. Apparently it began life as a bootleg recording of a concert in Germany in Spring, 1989. It was released by the Space Age label as "Live in Europe 1989". It was then re-released by the Bomp label as "Spaceman Are Go!" in 1995. Both are the same material. The one I have has liner notes from 1995 so it is the second version.As mentioned, I absolutely adore Pierce's later album Laser Guided Melodies, and I tend to hold all of his other works up against that Holy Grail. This is good, certainly, but it feels far rougher. Of course some may like that rough edge. To me, it's more discordant. Where Laser Guided Melodies is honey dripping in a golden shimmer into a meadow pond, this is more like the sizzling style of fireworks bursting against a bright sky. The singers are more "hey, listen to me!" styled. The musical interludes aren't as integrated.Still, clearly the musicians were much younger, so it makes sense they wouldn't be as practiced as later works. One could also say that maybe it's natural for young guys to have a fair amount of attitude :).We are all different, and we all like different styles of music. That's fine! For me, I adore what Pierce evolved into only a few short years later. I enjoy listening to Spacemen Are GO! as a stage of that evolution. It shows all the promise of what he will become. And then I go on to Laser Guided Melodies, and I am blissfully lost in the results.