• What is a Musicbrick?

I had been a Spiritualized devotee for around three years by this point. lazer Guided Melodies and Pure Phase were both in my possession and had been played to the point of disintegration. I had also seen them live around three times up to this juncture, each one a pure, euphoric experience, cementing Jason Pierce as a visionary. A spaceman who showed me the possibilties of exploration of the self and the cosmos through his music. But this, this was something interstellar.

A heavy day and night with friends on the eve of my 24th birthday, it was one of those special occasions when laughs followed laughs. Returning home to a friends house, we carried on with festivities until eventually, round about 9am, only four of us remained.. Talk turned to the new opus from J Spaceman, did anyone have it yet? Had anyone Heard it yet? The decision was made to call into the local record shop in town and purchase said work. On returning , we opened the blister pack packaging, amused by the prescription based liner notes. We placed the white pill shaped cd in the hi fi and sat back.

For the full 70 minutes running time we sat in silence, save for the odd glance of acknowledgement that we were experiencing one of the finest pieces of work each of us had come across. Numbed by the previous night's imbibement (indeed, we were still very much going strong in the partying stakes) we let each track wash over us like the cool waves J Spaceman described. String arrangements followed by deep fuzz acid guitar, pounding bass lines which ran up the spine and attacked the cerebral cortex, words whispered that seemed to shout at the same time. We knew we were experiencing something other-worldly, we knew that this, the first time we would hear it, would be the start of a love affair that would still be strong in the years to come.

Other albums followed, all striking in their own way, but nothing since has touched on that Saturday morning in August when we sat, rapt, in the company of genius.