Spacemen 3 - Forged Prescriptions

It was the cover of the the Spades "We Sell Soul" that I was privvy to and that had me hunting this one down. Haunting has been a word I've upchucked freely lately.

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Pitchforkmedia review: Fifteen years ago, kids didn't listen to this kind of music on CD, cassette, vinyl; they listened to it on the tips of their tongues. It used to come on blotter paper, in tabs. When string-seducer Sonic Boom went into his Rainbow Guitarland of Doom, people's serotonin levels never recovered. The Perfect Prescription was like taking an acid bath in the dungeon of the mind: revelatory but solitary. On Forged Prescriptions, the Spacemen are trying to absorb us into their skin.

This two-disc release consists of various alternative mixes, demos, and covers from Spacemen 3's Perfect Prescription recording sessions. According to the Boom, the majority of these mixes were "considered by us to be too hard to replicate live and therefore reduced for the original release." This is admittedly kind of absurd, like saying these tracks were too good to be listened to, but there is some validity in the sentiment. Whereas the disparity between the old and "new" mixes are perhaps subtle at best and practically indiscernible at worst, there is a difference in mood. If The Perfect Prescription often sounded extraterrestrial, it also just as often sounded like traditional Velvets-inspired indie rock. On Forged Prescriptions, though, the stratifications of guitar are even further attenuated to stunning single tones, the basslines float even more subliminally under the psychedelic mind-spinning noodling, and... well, okay, the drums are pretty much the same.

The gateway drug on this collection is the alternative mix to "Things'll Never Be the Same". If the original was a feedback dust-up, quenched in gravelly, occasionally Bob Mould-ish vocals and an abyssal thump, the new mix is so bombarded with combating guitar squeals, earthen drums, and Pierce's sustained tones it will excoriate your entire body. From the classic intro onwards, the guitars are played backwards, forwards, sidewards, epiphanywards. The original was phenomenal strutting feedback stagnating in the void. This is a twirling tea kettle launched into orbit, feedback that goes somewhere, at a pressure that gives you the bends. By "Call the Doctor", the guitars are spewing their trajectories of cosmic refulgence farther than the ears can grasp. At one point, I accompanied this euphony with the "Rolling Fire" setting on Windows Media Player and my computer restarted itself. Truth.

The new "Walking with Jesus" is perhaps the most startling mix, taking the original into an even more incorporeal and immaculate sphere. The Perfect Prescription version used too many 80s-indie-rock guitars for my liking, and vaguely sardonic; this one is an anesthetic plunge into purgatory, equipped with a choir instead of rock 'n' roll, and it's positively cultish-- the anthem of a Polyphonic Spree crossed with Heaven's Gate. "Come Down Easy (Demo Version)" is a filthy atomic 100-bar blues, oscillating echoes of birdman Pierce, our acidhead savior. You will bow down to him for his beatific benevolence and serenity. Except in this religion, the communion wafers are shrooms, the crucifix is the solar system, and the holy book is my hallucinations about Toad Demons: "It's 1987/ All I wanna do is get stoned."

But the second disc is the one that truly breathes new life into Perfect Prescription. The extended version of the Red Krayola cover "Transparent Radiation" replaces the angry muddle of the album version with light and clarity. The demo version of "Walking with Jesus" is when the Son of God bought a shotgun, rockin' twine and fuzz battered by shivering engines. The demo version of the heralded "Starship" and the previously unreleased cover of the MC5's "I Want You Right Now" are bone-implodingly dense, perfect tributes to 60s psych-metal, plasma ghosts emerging from Sabbath's grave.

To get pragmatic for a second (a little silly considering the only word this band knows is "excess"), the differences between these tracks and their album version counterparts can seem innocuous enough if you're not listening closely. Purists who've spent years memorizing every note of The Perfect Prescription are sure to think of it as little more than a curiosity. Many of the mixes here, however, are more complex, harmonious and pulverizing than those on the original classic. The second disc also acts as a sort of paltry best-of that combines some excellent covers with the most memorable songs from the original LP. As for those neophytes who ask if this album's any good if you're not on drugs, a better question might be whether drugs are any good without this album.

— Alexander Lloyd Linhardt, October 28, 2003

HEAR Disc 1

HEAR Disc 2