Twist of fate

Take space rock masters Spiritualized's latest album, called appropriately Songs in A&E. It's a spine-tingling piece of work, which soars between fragile delicacy and stripped down rock. Yet it was born out of a truly horrific experience — it's creator's struggle with a life threatening illness.

"The idea was to record and put the record out quick, but then I became ill," explains composer Jason 'Spaceman' Pierce — former Spacemen 3 guru and the creative engine at the heart of Spiritualized.

"I had double pneumonia. I had legionnaires' disease or something, so I was quite ill."

At his lowest ebb, Jason spent a couple of weeks in intensive care.

"I was in a bad way for a few months," he recalls. "It was a big gap in the making of this record."

It was a bitter turn in a recording process which had initially seemed blessed, following a bizarre external twist of fate.

"We found a guitar in a shop in Cincinnati," Jason recalls, "a 1929 Gibson, absolutely immaculate. I had no money but I kind of knew that I had to have the guitar, we found the man and took the guitar away, and it almost seemed like it came with the songs attached."

Jason pauses, and laughs. "The songs came really quick after that, within about two weeks or so.

"This record is the first one where I just sat down and wrote songs on a guitar. Usually I just get ideas in my head and put them on to tape. So doing it this way, writing on an acoustic guitar, seemed like something I hadn't really done."

Somewhere between writing and releasing the songs, Jason's illness kicked in — keeping him away from his work in progress for the best part of two years.

When he finally did return, it was difficult to regain the creative impetus.

He adds: "But it would've been equally hard to just let the songs go, because they're invested with a huge amount of emotion."

His way back into the record was an offer to provide the soundtrack to Mr Lonely, a new movie by director Harmony Korine.

"While I was doing stuff for Harmony's film, I also worked on the Harmony pieces on Songs In A&E. They're called that as a reference to him, and also because they're kind of harmonic pieces. They suggested a way of putting the original tracks together."

Jason's confidence was given a further boost, when invites started flooding in to perform his so-called Acoustic Mainlines gigs, everywhere from a weekender in Minehead, to the Harlem Apollo in New York.

The band — three gospel singers, a seven-piece string section, Spiritualized member Tony Foster on Fender Rhodes piano, and, Jason on acoustic guitar and vocals — pretty much brought the house down wherever it went.

"It sounds dumb, but we were on stage at some of those shows with tears rolling out of our eyes and across our faces.

"It was like doing a show without production — not about lights and bombast, just about the delivery of these songs. I think people were genuinely moved by it."

Buoyed up by each live excursion, Jason got stuck back into the 1929 Gibson songs, reworking them often with the same choir/strings/acoustic format.

The album that slowly took shape has all the flow of previous Spiritualized classics, only here there is no hiding behind studio effects, or screaming tornados of guitar feedback.

"There's no need to over-complicate things, to be wilfully strange in music.

"These songs are simple in their construction, but they're honest," he says.

The result is a masterpiece of simplicity and subtlety but cut with pure acid rock. After an album genesis even more harrowing than he might have anticipated, Jason is where he belongs — back on the road.

Spiritualized play the Oxford Carling Academy on Monday. Tickets are £16 in advance from the venue box office (0844 477 2000) or tctmusic.co.uk Support comes from The Shortwave Set. Doors open at 7pm.