LADIES & GENTLEMEN WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE

Spiritualized includes: Jason Pierce. Additional personnel includes: Dr. John, The Balenescu Quartet, London Community Gospel Choir. Engineers include: Darren Allison, Mads Bjerke, Trevor Curwen. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN is Spiritualized's crowning acheivement, a masterpiece of '90s psychedelia that captures the mystery and invention of groups like Pink Floyd and Spirit while sounding thoroughly contemporary. The seeds were sown with Spacemen 3. After J Spaceman defected to form Spiritualized, those seeds were nurtured on the latter's first couple of albums. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN is the full blossoming of Spiritualized's lush, spacey vision. Avid experimentalists from the beginning, the band takes the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach beyond its limits, with strings, horns, a gospel choir, steel guitar, and even Dr. John's piano added to the carefully constructed aural palace of harmony and dissonance. It's that balance of chaos and beauty that makes the songs so special, as unrelenting cavalcades of processed sound give way to ambient soundscapes. Perhaps most importantly, the band's songwriting is at a high point here, with subtle but unforgettable melodies attached to each song, no matter the extent of the sonic explorations.