From the Vaults Friday: Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997)

The Year: 1997
The Album: Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Who It Influenced: Sigur Rós, The National, Doves, Klaxons, The Warlocks

When the All Tomorrow's Parties festival recently announced that, as part of their ongoing Don't Look Back series, Spiritualized would be performing their 1997 Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space classic, in its entirety, in order, in October 2009, at the Royal Festival Hall in London, they instantly creating some of the hottest concert tickets of the year. For its devoted followers, the third LP from Jason Pierce's psychedelic, symphonic, space-rock ensemble is a work of unimpeachable genius; walking a fine line of heartbreak, confession, defiance, optimism, romance, and blind devotion to the gods of rock'n'roll that makes it timeless, universal, and magical.

When it was released in 1997, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space was part of a bumper year for epic English music, issued alongside Radiohead's OK Computer and The Verve's Urban Hymns. Curiously, Spiritualized had an intimate relationship with each band: their 1992 LP Lazer Guided Melodies having been a huge influence on Radiohead's Thom Yorke, for one. For the other, well, that's a little more tangled up.

When Pierce had been in Spacemen 3, he'd played shows with The Verve (back when they were just called Verve) in their earliest days. By 1995, Spiritualized were supporting The Verve in extraordinary circumstances: a July tour kicking off four days after Pierce's longtime girlfriend and Spiritualized collaboratuer, Kate Radley, had secretly married Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft. The marriage wasn't publicly announced 'til almost two years later; and, during that period, Pierce had slid into heartache, depression, and heroin addiction.

From there comes Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, less a breakup record than a simple, sweeping symphony of ache, a suite of songs in which a heart is left forever exposed; sentiments poured out in torrents of choral, gospel-tinged rock. Its title-track —openly inspired by Elvis Presley's version of "Can't Help Falling in Love"— is wondrous: simple yet complex, tender yet elusive, tragic yet hopeful. 12 years on, it still sounds like a perfect song; a perfect beginning to an album treading dangerously close to perfection.

• Full review: Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
• Alt Music History: Spiritualized Play World's Highest Ever Show