Spiritualized

When highly influential English psychedelic rockers Spacemen 3 splintered, singer/guitarist Jason Pierce (also known as J. Spaceman) formed his group Spiritualized, extracting his more melodic and plaintive songwriting from droning minimalism of his former band. Spiritualized evolved from the narcotic, Velvet Underground-inspired sounds of their earliest material to incorporate both gospel and blues influences and wistful orchestral pop touches that took cues from Brian Wilson and Phil Spector’s teenage symphonies to God. The band reached a new level with the lush atmospheres and sad-hearted beauty of their 1997 classic Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space and found international chart success with 2001 album Let It Come Down. With a creative process that involves exacting composition, recording, and mixing, Spiritualized albums trickled out slowly throughout the 2010s and 2020s, with extended gaps between albums like 2012’s Sweet Heart, Sweet Light, 2018’s And Nothing Hurt, and 2022’s Everything Was Beautiful.