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Customer Reviews
However, it would be nice if the original Spaceman albums were properly re-released. I think the more casual listener would perhaps prefer a packaging similar to the Space Age Recordings edition of Playing with Fire, with the original album on one disc and outtakes on the second disc.
All in all, this is an interesting appendix to what I consider the best album Spacemen 3 recorded.
This rocks. The spiel in the liner notes is that the original tracks on 'Perfect Prescriptions' were mixed in such a fashion as to be reproducable live. These tracks have extra layers of psychedelic faroutness drizzed all over them. Even, or perhaps especially, if you have their other stuff, you will get a kick out of this. If you have not checked out the Spacemen and are looking at this, it's drippy, hypnotic psychedelic blues riffs, some fuzzy, all WARM.
The subtle (and some not-so-subtle) differences in the songs on the first disc hit harder after having listened to Perfect Prescription, proper. "Things'll Never be the Same" is without the signature cymbal crashes while the wah soloing is more prominent; "Walking With Jesus" is a gospel song fresh from the church basement with humming organ, hushed vocals, and plaintive guitar; "Come Down Easy" and its country/western crawl saunters in on horseback while a Farfisa drone arrives minutes later.
It's hard to envision disc one as the true Perfect Prescription, especially when listeners have become accustomed to the previous versions, but this is supposedly the mixes and track order the band wanted in the first place; in time this will be the definitve version of the album.
Disc two is more hit and miss. Different mixes of "Transparent Radiation" and "Come Down Easy" appear, but considering the versions of those songs on the first disc are already different from what one is used to, it seems a bit too much to have another alternative mix. However, the second version of "Walking With Jesus" is perhaps the best version the band ever committed to tape, with its background droning buzz dueling with the plucked guitar notes.
"We Sell Soul" is nearly unrecognizable as being S3, at least at the time of Perfect Prescription; it sounds like a Playing With Fire or Recurring outtake, or something from Sonic's solo excursions. The "Starship" demo is a muscular jam that predates "Revolution" and "Suicide"; the two previously unreleased tracks are interesting but not necessarily necessary (the "Velvets Jam" was at one time available on a version of Dreamweapon).
All that said, this version of Perfect Perscription is at the very least interesting, but more often than not it hits as hard as the original album did the first time you heard it.
Reason: This is larded up with alternative versions of the same songs. And the CD's are both less than an hour long.
Yes, most of the music here is good, but it is redundant and short-lived, leaving me with the sense that I've been taken.
Even the consumers of the avant garde appreciate a fair deal and have awareness when they haven't received one.
To my surprise, I actually like most of it. The first alternate take of Things Won't Be the Same is better than the one that appeared on the album. And even though there seems to be a billion different versions of the Ecstacy Symphony, I prefer the version found here. It sounds a bit like a demo, but a really well-mixed demo. As for the previously unreleased tracks I've mentioned. None of them are really that great. the Velvet Jam sounds like an unwritten coda to The Velvet Underground's Sister Ray (which isn't a complaint at all.), but the other two tracks aren't all that interesting.
Other tracks, such as the first Alternate version of Walking with Jesus, maybe aren't as good as the original, but are still quite interestign to listen to to at least see where the band was going with the idea.
The bottom line is that, of course, Spacemen 3 fans will at least be intrigued by it, new listeners should just go with The Perfect Perscription album. That said, though, I'm unsure of how many of the tracks can be found elsewhere on the numerous Spacemen 3 oddity releases, but it does seem to compile stuff that even if previously released, it's otherwise hard to come across.
Now if only a comprehensive version of Recurring (including all b-sides/alternate mixes) gets released...
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