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Feb 24, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Colin Bell

Spiritualized (aka Jason Pierce and backing band) have announced a new vinyl reissue series featuring their first four albums and have shared the details of the reissue of their 1992 debut album, Lazer Guided Melodies. The Lazer Guided Melodies reissue is due out April 23 via Fat Possum.

Details of the other reissues are forthcoming. Below check out a newish video for the Lazer Guided Melodies’ “Run,” which the band shared last year and is similar to the original video for the song, but has been re-edited.

Pierce formed Spiritualized after his former band Spacemen 3 broke up. He had this to say about Lazer Guided Melodies in a press release: “The last Spacemen 3 record was under-realized to me. When I listen back to that stuff it sounds like somebody finding their way. There was a lot of ideas but no way to put them into a space that would make them all work. So, there was a huge freedom forging over the last Spacemen 3 record and when Spiritualized started it was like, ‘OK it’s all yours. Go’…

“We recorded the tracks in the studio near my flat which was a place where they predominantly recorded advertising jingles and it’s where we made all the Spacemen 3 records, but then the recordings were taken to Battery Studios in London, to explore a more professional way of making music… Once I approached that way of doing things I opened up a whole world and I was astounded that somebody could take those tracks and turn it into the record it became…”

The press release further describes the format of the reissue: “It will be the first in this series of 180g double albums mastered from a half speed lacquer cut from original sources by Alchemy Mastering, presented in a gatefold jacket adorned by reworked art by Mark Farrow, and available in both a standard black vinyl pressing and limited edition white vinyl exclusive to D2C / indie retail.”

The band has also released some new merchandise connected to Lazer Guided Melodies, including T-shirts, bags, and mugs. Check it all out on their website here.

Later there will be reissues of these albums: Pure Phase (1995), Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (1997), and Let It Come Down (2001).

Spiritualized’s last album, And Nothing Hurt, came out in 2018 via Fat Possum (and Bella Union in the U.K.). It was our Album of the Week. Read our review of And Nothing Hurt.

Read our 2008 interview with Jason Pierce.

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