Jason Pierce, frontman of Spiritualized (and, as the only consistent member, he pretty much just is Spiritualized…though he also sometimes likes being called J Spaceman) has announced on Twitter that he’ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their third studio album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space in a way that’s sure to please fans — well, at least those in London. Actually, it’ll probably frustrate more fans than it pleases, because anyone outside of London will be missing what sounds like a pretty immense Spiritualized event: he’ll be playing the album in its entirety for two nights (November 7, which has already sold out, and November 8) at the Barbican Theater, with a 15-piece orchestra and a gospel choir.
[We saw Spiritualized performing Ladies and Gentlemen… in its entirety at Radio City Music Hall a couple of years back, and it was mind-blowingly, face-meltingly, life-changingly AMAZING; if you’re a fan and you can somehow get to these shows, you absolutely owe it to yourself to do so — Spiritualized Fanaticism Ed.]
The announcement also comes with a bit more good (and universally enjoyable) news: there’s a new Spiritualized album on the way, which Pierce says is set to arrive on the exact day of the 20th anniversary of Ladies and Gentlemen — so it seems safe to say that the release date for whatever Spiritualized has in store is June 16, 2017. It’s because of the plans for that release, Pierce explains, that they’ve decided to play these concerts way in advance of the actual date, so the two projects don’t compete.
Often when artists speak of their past popular works, they can sound embarrassed, distant, or even grudging, but for Pierce, it seems that’s not at all the case with Ladies and Gentlemen. He wrote on Twitter:
In a 10/10 review of the Deluxe edition of the album, Drowned in Sound wrote that it’s “a record hewn from the greatest depths of human despair, but somehow it all feels positive. It is transcendental, escapist.”
The next album will be their followup to 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light.
[Via Pitchfork]