Spacemen 3 The Perfect Prescription Rarlab
1996 re-release.Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRating9/1010/109/10The Perfect Prescription is the second studio album by.It is a, 'a vision of a drug trip from inception to its blasted conclusion, highs and lows fully intact.' The music becomes progressively more orchestral and serene until the high of the trip, represented by 'Ecstasy Symphony'/'Transparent Radiation (Flashback),' moving on to the moment of realisation where the high has faded and the comedown ensues, represented by the harsh opening guitar chords in 'Things'll Never Be the Same.'
Coming down is represented in the blues based 'Come Down Easy,' whilst the potentially fatal effects of an overdose are portrayed in the final track 'Call the Doctor.' The music was written by the band except'Transparent Radiation' which is a cover from their 1967 album. The band also borrow heavily from the gospel standard 'In My Time of Dying,' for 'Come Down Easy' and pay homage to in 'Ode to Street Hassle.' Listed it at #50 in their list of the greatest albums of the 80s.
Contents.Track listing Original release (Glass GLALP 026)All tracks are written by, except where noted. Walkin' with Jesus'5:033.'
Ode to '3:544.' Ecstasy Symphony'1:545.'
Transparent Radiation (Flashback)' ('Transparent Radiation', )9:036.' Feel So Good'5:247.' Things'll Never Be the Same'5:588.' Come Down Easy'6:429.'
Call the Doctor'3:451989 re-issue (Fire Refire CD6)Adds b-sides from the ' single as bonus tracks:No.TitleLength10.' Soul 1'5:4111.' That's Just Fine'6:501995 re-issue (Genius Records CD)Adds two tracks from the ' single and the EP as bonus tracks:No.TitleLength9.' ' (Pierce, Kember, )11:0110.'
Rollercoaster' (Erickson, Hall)17:011996 re-issue (Taang! Records CD) No.TitleLength9.' Soul 1'5:4110.' That's Just Fine'6:5011.' Starship' (Pierce, MC5, Kember, Sun Ra)11:0112.' Ecstasy'9:08Personnel.,.
guitar, vocals, organ, organ. Bassman -.,Additional Personnel.
Spacemen 3 The Perfect Prescription Rarlab 2
Alex Green -. Mick Manning -. Owen John -Liner notes The vinyl edition of The Perfect Prescription includes liner notes by author R. Hunter Gibson:'The Perfect Prescription' is an album that will be left out of the rock 'n' roll readers, just as the great texts bid throw down his cloak for the quickstep of. If there has ever been an untrumpeted classic, here it is. An arcane, apocryphal document, this record, in late '80s UK, was telegraphing a message of unconcerned hope in a world hypnotised by guilt-ridden social work rock.
Here, more than anywhere, Spacemen 3 have a vested interest in absolutely nothing. It is revolutionary and militant where most angry young rock is liberal at best. It is extreme and accurate. Like ' it captures every aspect of the age that would later be analysed. As the unassuming soundtrack of a country breaking down and a world breaking up, its very nature means that it has been ignored. Spacemen 3, like all the great rock 'n' rollers, from Arthur Parker to, are revolutionary; this is their great manifesto, striding free from the pharmacy raid of their debut armed with the keys of the musical medicine cabinet. When we left off things would never be the same.
But the other side of the locked door, well, it's like the white one in the story. If 'Sound of Confusion' denied the wider stretches of the sense in favour of the immediately, roughly sensual, this script panned out from some suburban global village Viet vet subculture into a poppyfield undersown with righteous paranoia.
And still the smell of burning rubber on trash yankee wheels thickens the air. What goes on? Get the answer if you want it.' References.
Glass vs early FireI am in the extremely fortunate position of owning near mint copies of both the Glass original and the very first Fire pressing of The Perfect Prescription. As to which one is better, the answer may surprise you.If I were to play the two side-by-side to someone blindfolded, they would immediately be able to identify the Glass pressing; it is very obviously cut from the master tape. The sound is clear and detailed.
The Fire on the other hand is murky and with somewhat less information.Yet, the mastering on the Fire seems much closer to the Spacemen 3 intent. It is warm, dreamy, thick and quasi-hallucinatory. The Glass is very different or should I say indifferent.
Whoever mastered it clearly didn’t really understand what the Spacemen were trying to achieve and consequently the end result sounds like generic UK indie fare, far less of a sensual experience than the Fire. But then there’s more detail and clarityso what can you do?Since they’re so different in intent, I can only realistically recommend both to the big fan.
For others, if you’re wary of modern reissues but can’t raise the scratch on the Glass, don’t dismiss the early Fire - it’s definitely both stunner and keeper. I'm lucky enough to have a bronze copy and a gold copy, both on Glass records. Not sure how you tell which is which though.Either way, this album is their masterpiece. 'walkin' with Jesus' is top of my funeral play list, Feel so Good and Come down Easy.stoner classics.
Call the Doctor.takes them out of the stooges/ velvets rip off's into 13th floor elevators genius. The Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation segue is enough to guarantee greatness. It is amazing.really.
No drums.just sonically incredible. The best tripping track ever?
Perfect Prescription is the album that introduced me to Spacemen 3, and was one of the very last pieces of vinyl I ever bought. Anything I had come to perceive as psychedelic music quickly shifted gears, and took a backseat to that release, leaving me thinking that finally, some twenty years after the vivid psychedelic splendors of the 1960’s fell under its own weight, here, the hypnotic drifting lo-fi swirling drones, and lyrical presentations have finally caught up with the concept. And amazingly so.There was nothing complicated about Perfect Prescription with its thick, rich, lush interweaving sounds and textures. But that’s how the really splendid things are, simply elegant.
Perfect Prescription danced liquid images across my half closed eyes as I lay wrapped in the darkness, music totally engulfing me. These were the dynamics that would carry Spacemen, Spiritualized, The Darkside, and Spectrum into the future, to distant galaxies, and sadly into serious drug addition. After all, this is music designed to get high to, and to that end, if you are not one predisposed to drifting off into the nether regions of your mind, then this may just not be the perfect album for your ears. Though if you do have a penchant for cutting the cord from time to time, and find yourself floating among the stars, then Perfect Prescription is just what the Night Nurse ordered.So. While I thought that Perfect Prescription would never be topped, in my semi-tranced state, I could hardly imagine that there would be so much blissed material remaining on the cutting room floor from those heady sessions, with many of the songs gathered here actually sounding more full and un-compromised than those originally released. Or perhaps I needed the space between then and now to appreciate the differences, to wash myself in these deeper darker waters, diving for the bottom and coming up breathless.
A headful of wishes, and a handful of forged prescriptions.Review by Jenell Kesler.