Track Listing

1. Take Me to the Other Side
2. Walking With Jesus
3. Ode to Street Hassle
4. Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation (Flashback)
5. Feel So Good
6. Things'll Never Be the Same
7. Come Down Easy
8. Call the Doctor
9. Roller Coaster
10. Starship

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83040 in Music
• Released on: 1995-09-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

From Amazon.com
Never shy about letting listeners in on their biggest influences--a later Spacemen disc was titled Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To--this British trio crafted some of the most genuinely psychedelic music of the '80s and '90s before splitting into Spiritualized and Spectrum/EAR. The Perfect Prescription should appeal to fans of the former band, with its dazzlingly layered treatment of songs that, when pinned down for analysis, actually prove to be pop in its most majestic sense. The constantly oscillating guitars of Jason Pierce and Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, seldom shackled to anything as pedestrian as a standard beat, are unparalleled in their ability to take listeners on a journey to the center of the mind. Devotees of the earlier psychedelic era should note the presence of an extended, demented cover of the Red Krayola's "Transparent Radiation." --David Sprague

Customer Reviews

The Spacemen 3 album i would prescribe.
The second album from Spacemen 3 was planned to be a concept album based around a drug trip from its inception and via the high and lows to it's conclusion of sorts. The 1987 album could have been a self indulgent disaster ( which might have been apt as drug taking is essentially a selfish exercise forever flirting with the potential for a mishap) but is a remarkably focused affair helped by the strength of the song writing. You can have all the stimulant induced inspiration you want but if the songs are rubbish nothing can save you.
Wikipedia describes The Perfect Prescription as "space rock" which made me chuckle . The music based around guitars, tremolo , organ and farfisa with saxophones , trumpet and violins by guest musicians Alex Green , Mick Manning and Owen John respectively is a beautifully blended mix of drone rock with blurry rudiments of shoe gaze, jazz , gospel and more aptly psychedelia. Calling it space rock underplays it woefully and rather missies the point that the space this music is centred on is the space between the ears not that stuff full of stars, comets and satellites. The lack of percussion ( the drummer departed before the album was recorded left the band a trio ) also gives the music a more nebulous sound less rooted in conventional rock .
To be fair listening to the opening of "Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation(Flashback)" you may disagree about the space rock thing as it sounds like something you would have heard off "Space 1999" but this wonderfully arranged piece see's whirling slowly dissolving aches of violin merge into the cover of the Red Krayola classic. The crashing exultant chords of opening track "Take Me To The Other Side" and the fuzzed up "Things, ll Never Be The Same" ( which sounds like it could be off Loops Heavens End ) are set against the delicate ruminative "Feel So Good" and the drawling blues of "Come Down Easy". "Ode To Street Hassle " gives a salient nod to Lou Reed with Sonic Boom drawling about drugs and religion over a catchy guitar motif and undulating organ. "Walkin With Jesus" meanwhile gives a now obvious signifier to Jason Peirce's next band Spiritualized with it's two note keyboard , bubbling bass and thrumming acoustic guitars. "Call The Doctor" is a woozy slightly off kilter come down lament which ends the album - prior to a number of re-issues which tacked on extra tracks rather spoiling the intended concept.
I'm far too dull and square to ever partake of drugs but possibly the best thing about The Perfect Prescription is that it makes taking drugs sound like a positively wonderful way to pass the time .Or maybe that's not such a good thing. Anyway judging it in purely musical terms this is a fantastically rich album and one which takes the slightly pyscheldic by rote sound of their debut album Sound of Confusion and gives it an invocating unsullied patina of their own. I lovePlaying with Fire as well but if you are to own one Spacemen 3 album this is the one I would prescribe.

Psychedelic music gets no better.
Spacemen 3 never made a album that was less than superb, but this is the best of the lot. A sublime distillation of all their favourite influences - Stooges, Velvet Underground, Dylan, Red Crayola, Nuggets compilations etc, this album veers from thundering guitar frenzies to delicate strung-out drug hymns. This may be the best psychedelic album ever made, and tracks such as "Call the doctor" and "Transparent Radiation" are all-time classics.

Public school boys go to the bad shocker !
I thought it was just luverly when it came out - there are few things teenagers like better than a group of drug-addled public school-boys blissing out and doing their best Lou Reed impressions. Still sounds surprisingly good today - certainly better than anything the vastly over-rated Spritualised (Jason Pierce's new band) or the frankly awful EAR (Sonic Boom's new band)have ever released.