As if enjoying the hell out of their most recent LP A&E wasn’t enough, I stumbled across some treasures of Spiritualized hiding in the dark regions of some website archives. The first is an acoustic set lead singer and band founder J. Spaceman did when he stopped by the KEXP building in Seattle back in 2003. Going even further, I found an awesome performance of their live set from the Roskilde Festival held in Denmark from 1998 — a good year after they released their third studio album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, and was riding high from UK popularity. Oh those were the days…

The two sets really show the two sides of the Spiritualized coin. On one hand you have the soft and deeply emotional singer/songwriter who seems more vulnerable musician than powerful artist, while on the other hand you have the reckless amphetamine driven rock star with a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. This dichotomy is also apparent in Spaceman’s music. Folk ballads are juxtaposed with distorted noise rock songs to create music that can best be described as listener epilepsy — jolting you out of the auditory status quo with every track.

Spiritualized // Stop Your Crying (Live at KEXP)

Spiritualized // Hold On (Live at KEXP)

Spiritualized // Electricity (Live at Roskilde Festival)

Spiritualized // No God Only Religion (Live at Roskilde Festival)

Tags: Older Stuff, Spiritualized

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