Spacemen 3 - Discography

Discography

Note: Dates indicate original year of release.

Singles & EPs

  • "Walkin' With Jesus" (Glass) 1986
  • "Transparent Radiation" (Glass) 1987
  • "Take Me To The Other Side" (Glass) 1988
  • "Revolution" (Fire) 1988
  • (untitled) aka "Threebie 3" (Fierce) 1989
  • "Hypnotized" (Fire) 1989 - UK No. 85
  • "Big City" (Fire) 1991 - UK No. 88

Studio albums

  • Sound of Confusion (Glass) 1986
  • The Perfect Prescription (Glass) 1987
  • Playing with Fire (Fire) 1989
  • Recurring (Fire) 1991 - UK No. 46

Live albums

  • Performance (Glass) 1988
  • Dreamweapon (Cheree) 1990
  • Live In Europe 1989 (Space Age) / Spacemen Are Go! (Bomp!) 1995

Compilation albums

  • Translucent Flashbacks - The Glass Singles (Fire) 1995

Special re-release albums

  • Playing with Fire (Space Age) 1999
  • Forged Prescriptions (Space Age) 2004

Unofficial albums

  • Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To (Father Yod) 1990
  • Losing Touch with Your Mind 1991
  • For All the Fucked Up Children of This World We Give You Spacemen 3 1995
  • Revolution or Heroin (Fierce) 1995
  • How the Blues Should've Turned Out 2005

Notes re: releases since band disbanded

In the two decades following the break-up of Spacemen 3, a large amount of previously unreleased recordings has been released, adding significantly to the Spacemen 3 canon. This material includes: live recordings; demos; earlier iterations of certain songs; alternate versions of many songs; some unfinished work; and some entirely previously unreleased songs. These releases have been both official and unofficial, and some have been issued by the Kember/Palmer-affiliated label Space Age Recordings.

Losing Touch with Your Mind, an unofficial release of 1991, was a compilation of alternate song versions and rare releases. The 1993 re-release of Dreamweapon on the Sympathy For The Record Industry label - which included the intriguing live 44-minute Eastern-inspired drone music performance at the Waterman Art Centre, Hammersmith, London, of August 1988 - was augmented with a previously unreleased recording of a jam.

1995 saw the unofficial release of the band's first demo tape: For All the Fucked Up Children of This World We Give You Spacemen 3. Dating to 1984, this provided an interesting insight into the band's earliest work and "rougher" sound. These recordings pre-dated the other early demos previously made available on the 1990 unofficial, Father Yod release entitled Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To.

The 1994 re-release of the Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To (Northampton Demos) album included several previously unreleased alternate song versions and other bonus tracks.

Two live albums were released in 1995: Live In Europe 1989 (also released in 1995 as Spacemen Are Go! on the Bomp! label, but without 'Take Me to the Other Side' and an alternate take of 'Suicide') which represented the first release of the band's live work from their lengthy 1989 contintental tour; and Revolution or Heroin, a bootleg of performances from the band's 1988 gig at the University of London Students Union. The former has been described as "far better than the more ragged earlier Spacemen 3 live album, 1988's Performance (Stewart Mason, AllMusic).

In 1999, Spacemen 3's third studio album, Playing with Fire, was given a special, 10th-anniversary re-release. This official double disc release comprised all the original recordings together with previously unreleased alternate versions, demos and covers (e.g. The Perfect Disaster's "Girl on Fire" and The Troggs' "Anyway That You Want Me") from the same studio sessions. This re-release has been described as the "definitive" version of the Playing with Fire album.

In 2004, Spacemen 3's second studio album, The Perfect Prescription, was also given the special re-release treatment. The double disc official release, entitled Forged Prescriptions, comprised alternate mixes of the original album tracks together with previously unreleased alternate versions, demos and covers (e.g. The Spades' "We Sell Soul" and The Troggs' "I Want You") from the same studio sessions. Kember's liner notes explain that the alternative mixes represent the more multi-layered versions which he and Pierce agreed not to use because they would be unable to satisfactorily reproduce their sound live.

A bootleg called the Out of it Sessions comprises demo recordings of early iterations of songs from The Perfect Prescription album.

In 2005, Kember produced and released his own limited edition, double disc album, How the Blues Should've Turned Out. This wholly comprised previously unreleased material, including alternate versions, rough demos, unfinished work, etc.

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