Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription

Is there a release with the bronze sleeve? Or at least a pic? This comment is hard to estimate otherwise!

I’ve been listening to this album most of my life, never get bored, just gets better and better. I cannot recommend this album high enough, this album really is 3 x better than any dream, blast off with the spacemen. It’s albums like this that keep you alive how can you die and never listen to this again, just magic

I'm not sure there is a better album, to be honest

Got this masterpiece for $8 I did. Couldn't believe I found the album used, let alone an original in perfect shape. One of the greatest finds in my collection.

Glass vs early Fire
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I am in the extremely fortunate position of owning near mint copies of both the Glass original and the very first Fire pressing of The Perfect Prescription. As to which one is better, the answer may surprise you.

If I were to play the two side-by-side to someone blindfolded, they would immediately be able to identify the Glass pressing; it is very obviously cut from the master tape. The sound is clear and detailed. The Fire on the other hand is murky and with somewhat less information.

Yet, the mastering on the Fire seems much closer to the Spacemen 3 intent. It is warm, dreamy, thick and quasi-hallucinatory. The Glass is very different or should I say indifferent. Whoever mastered it clearly didn’t really understand what the Spacemen were trying to achieve and consequently the end result sounds like generic UK indie fare, far less of a sensual experience than the Fire. But then there’s more detail and clarity…so what can you do?

Since they’re so different in intent, I can only realistically recommend both to the big fan. For others, if you’re wary of modern reissues but can’t raise the scratch on the Glass, don’t dismiss the early Fire - it’s definitely both stunner and keeper.

I'm lucky enough to have a bronze copy and a gold copy, both on Glass records . Not sure how you tell which is which though.Either way, this album is their masterpiece. "walkin' with Jesus" is top of my funeral play list, Feel so Good and Come down Easy...stoner classics. Call the Doctor .....takes them out of the stooges/ velvets rip off's into 13th floor elevators genius. The Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation segue is enough to guarantee greatness. It is amazing....really. AMAZING! No drums...just sonically incredible. The best tripping track ever ?

This is the album that introduced me to Spacemen 3, and one of the very last pieces of vinyl I ever bought. Anything I had come to believe was Psychedelic Music quickly took a back seat to this release. Now, finally, some twenty years after the Psychedelic Movement of the 1960’s fell under its own weight, the hypnotic drifting sounds and vocal presentations, have finally caught up with the concept ... and amazingly so.

There is nothing complicated about this record, Perfect Prescription is thick, rich, and lush with texture and sound ... but it's more, I want to say that Prefect Prescription is psychically visual because of the way morphing images danced across my half closed eyes as I lay wrapped in the darkness, the music totally engulfing me. These are the fledgling dynamics that would carry both Spacemen, The Darkside, Spiritualized, and Sonic Boom of Spectrum, into the future, distant galaxies, and sadly into serious drug addition. After all, this is music designed to get high to. There have been many albums in my sweet life that have sounded wonderful while on the nod, but unlike “Heroin” by The Velvet Underground, which attempted to musically describe and capture the effects of being high, Perfect Prescription was been written for the sole purpose of listening to while being high. To that end I would say that if you are not one predisposed to drifting off into the nether regions of your mind, then this album may not be for you ... and if you do cut the cord from time to time, and find yourself floating among the stars, this is, the perfect prescription ...

This was the essential album that opened my mind to the world of truly psychedelic music, tunes made not to break through into wider fame, but for the trippers to take home and wrap up in. The title of one of their other records says it all: "Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To". Other Music's logo uses the same font that they did; unconfirmed, but I think it is a fairly safe assumption that it's an homage to this incredibly seminal band. Generally people have either not heard of them, or they're one of their top favorite bands. Long grinding drones, or two-chord barges, lots of vibrato shimmering like narcotized moonlight, and wild lost leads pushed way back in the mix; not for everyone I suppose, but highly recommended if you're fond of the other side.