Burrowing Deep

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 8, 2008 5:45PM

Jason Pierce -- a.k.a. J Spaceman -- is adept at taking great washes of guitar and funneling them through an otherworldly filter to create a kind of secular gospel music to lose your mind to. His vehicle for doing so for almost two decades has been through the space rock psyche-out albums created under the Spiritualized® moniker.

The band is currently touring behind their new disc Songs in A&E, and while that album doesn't coast along the grand cosmic mastery accomplished by the band's high water mark Ladies And Gentlemen We're Floating In Space, it does feel like a more personal rumination coming from Pierce's internal examination after his own near fatal illness a few years ago. The band's set at this year's Pitchfork Musical Festival was a highlight for us, with our only quibble being that it seemed odd to see Spiritualized® in the daylight, out in the open. The music was more than up to the task, but we wondred if we would ever get a chance to see the band in relatively cozy confines.

Luckily for us, the answer is yes, as Spiritualized® returns to Chicago to play The Metro tonight. We're very excited to be in a room where the waves of guitar will be able to wash back and forth over us as we burrow womblike into the crowd on the floor.

Spiritualized® plays tonight, September 8, at The Metro, 3730 N Clark, 8 p.m., $20, 18+

Photo by Jim Kopeny