jason pierce - guitars/vocals/compositions

kate radley - keyboards

sean cook - bass/harmonica

damon reece - drums/percussion

"ladies and gentlemen....." follows the pattern of "aural sculpture" and "melodic repitition" set by 1992's "laser guided melodies" and the denser, more involving "pure phase" released in 1995. what the new album adds is a greater sense of awe and a more impressive and realised scale of ambition.

spiritualized's jason pierce first came to recognition as one of the two great songwriters that made up spacemen 3, the late eighties britsh space merchants who perfected a way of repossessing the music of their heroes - suicide, the velvet underground, the mc5, stooges et al - into droning collages.

spacemen 3 did this quite openly and blatantly. spiritualized maintained that fondness for repetition, where simple motifs re-occur but added a higher degree of original composition, a denser more textured and layered sound and greater sensuality.

if spacemen 3 was a homage to his influences, jason pierce once described spiritualized as "trying to create music that fills the gaps in all my influences, the gaps in my record collection. i'm trying to make the connections people have missed. it's very easy to sound like the beach boys or the beatles but it doesn't make for great music. it makes records that are appear superficially great".

with "ladies and gentlemen.." jason pierce is far from wearing his influences on his sleeve. those influences have been assimilated to a point where the new album is more accurately a simple reflection of his profound musical awareness.

taken from spiritualized homepage at  www.dedicated.co.uk