Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist
Jason Pierce -- aka
J Spaceman -- has been a driving force in forward-thinking, hypnotic music with
Spacemen 3,
Spiritualized, and on his own.
Pierce founded
Spacemen 3 in 1982 with
Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, and over the course of albums such as 1987's The Perfect Prescription and 1989's Playing with Fire, the band crafted a spacy, narcotized sound inspired by
the Velvet Underground,
La Monte Young, and
Steve Reich, and used the motto "taking drugs to make music to take drugs to."
Pierce expanded on that sound in the '90s with
Spiritualized, giving the group a symphonic majesty on works like 1997's masterpiece
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space and 2001's
Let It Come Down.
On his own,
Pierce has also collaborated with
Dr. John,
the White Stripes, and
Primal Scream, and released his first solo album, Guitar Loops, in 2006. He returned in 2008 with the
Spiritualized album
Songs in A&E and
Mister Lonely, a collaboration with
Sun City Girls that was also the score to
Harmony Korine's film of the same name. He also collaborated with American pianist
Matthew Shipp, producing the album SpaceShipp. Following
Spiritualized's 2012 full-length
Sweet Heart, Sweet Light,
Pierce and
Oneida drummer
Kid Millions collaborated for an improvisational live performance at Manhattan club Le Poisson Rouge.
Northern Spy issued Live at Le Poisson Rouge on Record Store Day in April of 2014. In 2016,
Pierce collaborated with Chilean psych rock band
Föllakzoid while they were touring in Europe. London Sessions, a 12" EP of
Spaceman-augmented versions of two songs from the group's album
III, was released by Sacred Bones in 2017. ~ Heather Phares & Paul Simpson