Spacemen 3
Dreamweapon

LA RECENSIONE

The Spacemen 3 were one of the greatest psychedelic bands of the '80s, arguably far superior to the overrated Jesus And Mary Chain. Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce were two geniuses, and their music originally blended Red Crayola, Stooges, Velvet Underground, and Can to create a minimalist and hypnotic sound. After the first raw yet valid Sound Of Confusion, still with a garage-punk attitude, Spacemen 3 released two masterpieces like The Perfect Prescription and Playing With Fire. The latter, in particular, stood out with the absence of drums, containing true musical gems like “Lord Can You Hear Me?”. The keyword to understand their music is "minimalism". Devotees of Suicide and Alan Vega (not coincidentally the aforementioned “Playing With Fire” includes a track titled "Suicide"), the Spacemen 3 crafted a simple yet intense musical language that warped tradition (blues, psychedelia, and krautrock) in a hallucinatory manner. The group, particularly Sonic Boom (a self-declared heroin addict), placed great importance on the use of drugs, seeing them as an indispensable element of their music. They were copied by the Loop (who received more media coverage than the Spacemen), which is why Sonic Boom took issue. However, in my opinion, the masterpiece of Spacemen 3 is Dreamweapon, a live album defined as "An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music". There’s no sitar, but the otherworldly effect of this music is a total trip: it's like listening to Philip Glass under the influence of heavy doses of LSD. Minimal notes of guitar chords paint hypnotic melodies that transport us to a state of pure mystical ecstasy. This is psychedelic rock but, at the same time, it's avant-garde. Dreamweapon is their Metal Machine Music, yet it contains great music nonetheless. It's an album of unreal and otherworldly beauty. It's not necessary to be under the influence of drugs (the effect is the same) to enjoy the infinite and cathartic flow created by the spaceship of Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce. It's a shame that after the group disbanded, the two couldn't return to these levels, even though I believe Jason Pierce with Spiritualized did better than his colleague.