Rugby's Spacemen 3 turned distortion and drone into a blueprint that shaped shoegaze and drone metal alike.
MOODS · hypnotic · droning · distorted · minimalist · trance-like · psychedelic · heavy · repetitive · atmospheric · raw · intense · meditative
BIOGRAPHY
Spacemen 3 formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire, when Peter Kember and Jason Pierce met as 16-year-olds at Rugby Art College. Performing as Sonic Boom and J Spaceman, they built a minimalist psychedelic sound from heavily distorted guitars, synthesizers and near-static tempos, drawing on the Stooges, the Velvet Underground and Suicide.
After the 1986 debut Sound of Confusion, the band released The Perfect Prescription (1987) and Playing with Fire (1989), the latter topping the NME and Melody Maker indie charts and becoming their most successful record. Spacemen 3 split acrimoniously soon after, issuing the posthumous Recurring in 1991. Pierce went on to lead Spiritualized, while Kember built a second career producing under the name Sonic Boom.
WHY THEY'RE COOL
Spacemen 3's slow-burning walls of distortion and hypnotic repetition laid groundwork later claimed by shoegaze acts like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, and by drone metal groups such as Sunn O))) and Earth. A tribute album featuring covers by Mogwai, Low, Bowery Electric and Bardo Pond underscored how widely their influence spread. Playing with Fire, their commercial and critical peak, hit number one on both the NME and Melody Maker indie charts, cementing their standing as a foundational underground act.
GEORGE'S PLAYS
First time on the station.
PLAYED ON WOKE1
