Customer Reviews

Recurring

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Probably the best Spacemen 3 album if you want to understand what was happening when Spiritualized came into being. Half of the album belongs to J. Spaceman (Pierce) and the other half to Sonic Boom (Kember) with a bit of blending mid-way through. And its all amazing because you can see the beginnings of new sounds moving toward Spiritualized/Spectrum respectively as well as resonances from earlier days.

when i first put on this cd i noticed immediately that this sounded different then the spacemen 3 i knew, much more electronic, atleast the first half of the cd. come to find out the first half of the cd was mostly done by pete kember (aka sonic boom), and the second by jason peirce, due to tensions in the band, resulting in their split. some tracks that blew me away on here were Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here), I Love You, and Why Couldn't I See. this cd is good stuff, though not really spacemen 3, more like spectrum/spiritualized i guess, still so right.

This, Spacemen 3's 4th & final album, is basically a Spacemen 3 album only in name. All of Sonic's tracks are bunched together, followed by Jason's bunch. Jason's songs are more promising than anything else, however, the blueprint that he has here is what he totally perfected on Spiritualized's "Lazer Guided Melodies" album shortly after. Sonic's songs however are all sensational. Containing the upbeat "Big City", "Why Couldn't I See", "I Love You", "Just To See You Smile", & "Set Me Free/ I Got The Key", you simply couldn't ask for a better album from Sonic. His songs are incredibly fun, blissful, & lovely. Some of the lyrics, like "Oh honey, oh you look so sweet/ oh baby, oh you look so neat" from "Set Me Free/ I Got The Key" may seem unbearably cheesy, however, the way he wisely combines these lines with an adorable ringing 12-string acoustic guitar melody illustrates how he knows exactly what he is doing. The effect it totally gleeful & transcendant. "Why Couldn't I See" has some great beautifully sad lyrics like, "You made me feel that I was just what you needed/ Then you turned 'round & said, "Why don't we leave it/ Why couldn't I see". The album is a triumph for Sonic. Try to get the U.K. version of this CD, since it contains about 24 more minutes of material. However, don't think you should pass on the 11 track U.S. release if you should see it, containing it has all the tracks mentioned ("Big City" from the U.S. release is featured as "Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here" on the U.K. version, & it's nearly 11 minutes long, compared to the 5 minute edit on the U.S. one), & you can live without most of the extras. The previously mentioned tracks by Sonic (plus the explosive Mudhoney cover "When Tomorrow Hits") form the heart of the album. Get "Recurring" in any form that you can. Sonic's songs: 5 stars+.

This is one of my favorite CDs not only from Spacemen 3 but of all time. It is one of those releases that you never get tired of hearing and one which you can put on to get away from the world for a while and just get lost in all the great music it contains. The first half is all Peter and the second half Jason apparently. Separated by a cover of a Mudhoney song, the only song both Spacemen actually play on together. However, both halves seem to mesh perfectly into a whole and it just flows from beginning to end. The music on here touches dance, trance, rock and dreamy pop with equally brilliant results and contains one of the saddest yet most beautiful songs I've ever heard (Drive-Feel so Sad). It is my favorite Spacemen 3 album for all of the above reasons. If you are a true lover of alternative music or just plain good music you'll want to add this to your collection.

I have lots of Jason's music and this may be the best with Spacemen 3.

Spacemen 3's last album was pretty good, even though it wasn't as great as their 80's work Perfect Prescription and Playing With Fire. Each half of the record is a different band member, we got Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce. Sonic Boom's side which is the first part of the album is the best. My favorite song is Big City. Any fan of Spacemen 3/Spiritulized should pick this up if you see a copy used.

Look at this as the Spacemen's "white album" --Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce each wrote and produced one side of this record; the band was essentially finished. The first side, from Sonic Boom, is clearly reminiscent of his work in Spectrum. The second side, all written and recorded by J. Spaceman, sounds much like Spiritualized. It's more straightforward and accessible than some of their earlier releases, but it's nowhere near as good as Playing With Fire or The Perfect Prescription.

This is an excellent album for people who understand or can apreciate a fuzz-pop sort of aesthetic. This '91 or so offering is the last of Spacemen's fully integrated albums, although rumor (and maybe fact) has it that the two leaders of the group split sides on the record and did all the writting and production exclusively on his/her respective side. Whatever. It is a cohesive record. It does seem to have marked a departure from previous music, though, music with a much fuzzier, deconstructed, crunchier and darker(aurally)sound about them. The tracks of Recurring are peppy poppy songs at base, which may put off folks who prefer the discordant vaporizer phase-gun style of previous work. While the next incarnation of Spacemen 3 alumn, the band Spiritualized, is an obvious evolution of the sound of Recurring, it nonetheless in places returns to the sort of maddening wash of string distortion and manipulation that characterized their earliest work, but with a palate much more delicate, and, thanks to super souped production, intricate. Recurring, in between, is probably the most commercial work done by these lads. And some might say the best.

This is my favorite album for:bringing a friend back home that has gone out a little too far for comfort...thinking hard and gazing at geometric shapes...introsensualselfrelations/astralorgasms...pre-dreams of interest recalled the following day...prescribed daily

Listen and you'll understand.