译叉婊重评Spiritualized《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space
搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）
翻译：Beans_Beans
This new deluxe, limited product is onlyfor hardcore fans; the music, however-- both the original LP and this record'sextras-- is timeless.
这一全新的豪华限量再版LP无疑是为铁杆粉丝准备的一份大礼；但无论是原版LP还是这一再版唱片中附加的音乐，都将是永恒的艺术瑰宝。
"There's a hole in my arm where allthe money goes," moans Jason Pierce at the start of "Cop ShootCop...", the 17-minute closer of Spiritualized's third album and lonemasterpiece, Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space. His bedraggledvoice drips through the words. He's an addict, but it's as if he realizes noneof it mattered, anyway-- there's no salvation, no redemption, only cold lifeand sudden death. One cop lives to kill another cop. (Or a junkie survives onlylong enough to shoot up again.) The world keeps turning. Just like in hisopening line, he quotes John Prine: "Jesus Christ died for nothing, Isuppose."
"There's a hole in my arm where all the money goes," Jason Pierce在“Cop Shoot Cop…“的开头如此抱怨道，而这正是Spiritualized的绝世杰作——第三张录音室专辑《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》中长达17分钟的结束曲。字里行间充斥着他凌乱污秽的词句。显而易见，他是个不折不扣的瘾君子，但他似乎又不屑一顾——没有救赎、没有忏悔，有的只是冰冷残酷的生活和突如其来的死亡。吸毒的终点永远通向下一次吸毒。*（或者说一个瘾君子到底多会能活够——就是他能再吸一次的时候。）地球少你一人不会停转。就像他的开场白一样——他引用了John Prine的话——“我想，耶稣的死毫无意义”。
*[译者注释]“cop”本义是美国俚语中的“条子”、“警察”；但这里并非“警察射杀警察”，而应用作动词，意思是“得到某物”，例如d品。
Since the 1997 release of Ladies and Gentlemen, Spiritualized have recorded three LPs, a handful of singles and EPs,and two double-disc sets called Complete Works. And the noise-gospel rocksprees that followed Ladies and Gentlemen cemented Spiritualized's reputationas one of rock'n'roll's best live spectacles. Pierce has also scored a HarmonyKorine film, recorded a solo electronics album, collaborated with Spring HeelJack, and sculpted a mesmerizing long-form drone record with pianist MatthewShipp. He also almost died, in 2005 of bilateral pneumonia, only to recover andfinish a remarkable return to form-- Songs in A&E. Yet Pierce unequivocallyreached the height of his recorded powers with Ladies and Gentlemen. Bolderthan the term Britpop might suggest, more focused than the term psychedelicmight imply, Ladies and Gentlemen is one of the great triumphs of the70-plus-minute CD era. Alternately chaotic and meticulous, thundering andquivering, Ladies and Gentlemen finds power in conflict-- between restraint andexcess, addiction and isolation, and ultimately, love and hate.
自1997年发行《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》以来（1997-2010），Spiritualized已经录制了三张全长专辑，几支单曲还有几张EP，以及两张名为《Complete Works》的精选辑。伴随《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》而来的喧闹的福音摇滚狂潮巩固了Spiritualized有着摇滚乐史上最精彩的现场表演之一的声誉。Pierce在这期间还为电影《Harmony Korine》制作配乐、录制了第一张个人电子专辑、与Spring Heel Jack合作、并与钢琴家Matthew Shipp精心打磨了一张迷人慵懒的长篇唱片。在2005年，他还差点命丧于双侧肺炎，但最终康复并完成了令人膛目的回归作品——《A&E》。但是Pierce在《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》中的演绎仍是他生涯中难以逾越的巅峰。《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》远比所谓的“英伦流行”愈加磅礴大胆，比“迷幻音乐”愈加精专沉静，这短短70多分钟昭示了CD时代的伟大胜利之一。时而混沌无序，时而精致可感，时而宛如惊雷落地，时而仿佛惊惧颤抖，《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》在克制与放纵、成瘾与孤立，终是爱与恨的矛盾中汲取力量。
Like most any critical and commercialsuccess, the record has now been repackaged with extra content-- specifically,in an ornate limited run meant for collectors and zealots. Ladies andGentlemen's treatment as an edition of 1,000 numbered box sets from ATP isoutrageous and elegant enough to match its contents: Each song comes on anindividual black three-inch CD, the discs sealed inside black blisterpackaging, like the single tablets of a treatment regimen. Two discs of demosand isolated elements from the finished tunes-- those lonesome, blue hornsblaring through "No God Only Religion", for instance-- get their ownpackage, too, as does a personalized prescription signed by the doctor JasonPierce himself. The liner notes take the form of lengthy instructions andtechnical specs for the medicine-- how the pills were made, who made them, andhow they should be taken. "What is Spiritualized used for?" asks thesilver metallic ink. "Spiritualized is used to treat the heart andsoul."
就像大多数在乐评和商业上双双成功的唱片一样，这张如今也被重新包装起来，增添了额外的内容——特别地还为收藏家和铁杆粉丝设计了华丽的限量版封套。《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》这一由ATP制作的限量1000套独立编号盒装唱片的版本，其设计既令人震惊又足够优雅、足以与它其中的内容相匹配——每首歌都刻录在一张3英寸大小的黑色CD上，并密封在黑色泡罩包装内，就像药盒中的一个个独立片剂。两张小样碟和从已完成的曲目中分离出来的元素——例如，在“No God Only Religion”中响起的那支零几声忧郁的喇叭声——也得到了单独的包装，还有一份由“Jason Pierce医生”亲自签名的个性化处方。内衬的画册采用了冗长的用药说明书和药物技术规格书的形式——"药丸”是如何制造的、谁制造的、以及应该如何服用等等。“Spiritualized究竟是干嘛的?”纸上的一行银色金属感墨迹如此问道——“Spiritualized”是用来治愈心灵和灵魂的。
There's no better way to put it, really.Ladies and Gentlemen is, at its core, an album about wanting something youdon't have until, as "Cop Shoot Cop..." says, it brings you to yourknees. Pierce wants to fill that hole in his arm, or-- as it were-- the hole inhis heart. Kate Radley plays keyboards and sings on Ladies and Gentlemen, andshe begins the album with that famous telephone call: "Ladies andgentlemen, we are floating in space," her voice delivering horrible newswith ruinous calm. Her romance with Pierce had just ended. Four days beforeSpiritualized were to open for the Verve in England in 1995, she secretlymarried the headliner's Richard Ashcroft. "All I want in life's a littlebit of love to take the pain away," Pierce repeats for the album's first minute.Your heart would hurt, too.
真的无需多言。《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》这张专辑的核心目的就是让你体验你从未经历过的东西，即便你能坚持到最后，听到“Cop Shoot Cop…”，你也会当场下跪。Pierce在这首歌中试图修补他手臂上的那个洞，倒不如说是他内心的那个“洞”。Kate Radley在《Ladies and Gentlemen》中作键盘手，也偶尔贡献人声部分，这张专辑便是以她那句著名的通话录音开始：“Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space.”她的声音是灭世般的平静、传递着怖人的讯息。1995年，她与Pierce的恋情刚刚结束，在Spiritualized在英格兰为乐队the Verve出演的四天前，她悄然嫁给了这一乐队的主唱Richard Ashcroft。“我的一生所想便是能收获一丝丝爱意来驱赶悲痛” Pierce在专辑开篇的第一分钟如此重复道。想想，若是你，你的内心也会因此千疮百孔。
Pierce famously denies that Ladies and Gentlemenhas anything to do with Radley, telling The Guardian as late as 2001 that"People have this idea that anyone who writes music is bearing theirsoul." He cited "Broken Heart", in which he admits that he's toobusy to actually have one, as an example of playfulness. These songs weremostly written before they called it quits, he's said, and, after all, it'sonly rock'n'roll. But with very vivid words and visceral sounds, Ladies andGentlemen expresses the extremes of attachment and separation. "I justdon't know what to do on my own/ All of my thoughts are with you," Piercesings. But he's not just hurt-- he's also angry. His band eventually unloads arock salvo that feels like a fistfight. The drums roil. The piano pounds. Ifthere ever was a melody, the harmonica's choked the breath from it. By the nextnumber, he's practically sobbing over a galactic country drift: "Stay withme/ Smile all the time/ Don't go." He's still addicted to something, andon "Electricity", he lets us know how good it felt. "I'm playingwith fire, if you know what I mean."
Pierce总是否认《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》与Radley有所关系，直至2001年他还告诉《卫报》：“人们总认为，艺术家们所写下的音乐都承载着他们的灵魂。”他以“Broken Heart”为例打趣，在这首歌中，他承认自己太过忙碌，没有闲暇去真正拥有一段感情。他说，这些歌曲大多是在他们分手之前创作的，而且毕竟这些只是单纯的摇滚乐。但即便如此，《Ladies and Gentlemen》依然运用非常生动的语言和发自内心的声音再现了依恋和分离这两个极端。“I just don't know what to do on my own/ All of my thoughts are with you,”皮尔斯这样唱道。他不仅因此受伤，还深陷愤怒——他的乐队最终发射了一枚石弹，就像一场博弈赛，最终彼此都伤痕累累。急切的鼓、沉重的钢琴。倘若这里确有一段旋律，口琴像是会吹到窒息的程度。来到下一首，他几乎是在为银河帝国的流浪而悲歌：“Stay with me/ Smile all the time/ Don't go.”他显然依旧沉迷于某些东西，在“Electricity”中，他为我们描绘了那感觉有多好。“I'm playing with fire, if you know what I mean.”（“我就是在玩火，你懂我意思吧。”）
The rub, of course, is that we don't knowwhat he means. We can only interpret and internalize for ourselves. Maybe itwas Radley, or maybe it was the heroin he smoked and the booze he drank. Hell,maybe he was just being an entertainer. But if you don't know those feelings,the highs of love and the lows of loss, you've fared better than most. Thissort of emotional ambiguity makes Ladies and Gentlemen an eternal album, asprovocative then as it is now. People haven't stopped loving and losing andhurting yet, and they won't, of course. These pleasures and pains can beattached to anything. But what makes this ostentatious reissue-- the box costs£125.00, or about $190, plus postage-- so interesting right now is that itfeels like a souvenir forwarded from another era. Ladies and Gentlemen is anextinct breed of album, a production so lavish that you have to think mostrecord label executives would balk or faint at the thought of funding it in2010. To wit, New Orleans fixture Dr. John is but a session player here,joining a cast of a dozen players, the London Community Gospel Choir, and ahigh-profile string quartet. (The record is also being reissued as a singledisc, with new artwork, and as a 3xCD set without a lot of the pricy trappingsof the more extravagant package.)
当然，问题在于我们并不知道他是什么意思，也因此只能自己阐明内化。也许正是因为Radley，也许因为他嗑药、酗酒，也许就像他说的他只是在做一个艺人。倘若你从未体验过爱的激情和生离死别的低落，某种角度讲你确实比大多数人过的要自在一点。但也正式这种情感上的两难境地使《Ladies and Gentlemen》成为一张永恒的经典，无论是过去还是当下，它都极具煽动性。人们从未停止去爱、会失去和伤害，当然也不可能会；这些快乐和痛苦的情感依附于任何东西而存在于世。这一再版售价125英镑(约合1111人民币)，可能还需要一点邮资，如今看来非常有趣，它感觉像是从另一个时代穿越而来的纪念品。《Ladies and Gentlemen》是一张几近绝迹的专辑，它的制作如此奢华，以至于2010那一年大多数唱片公司的高管一想到要资助它，至少会犹豫甚至当场晕厥。要知道，这张专辑还有临时成员：来自新奥尔良的Dr. John、The London Community Gospel Choir（伦敦社区福音唱诗班）和一个备受瞩目的Balanescu Quartet前卫弦乐四重奏乐团。(这张唱片也曾以单LP的形式重新发行，也添加了新的插图；除此之外还有一种3xCD套装，但没有更奢侈的包装以及其中华丽的装饰。)
That spirit is evident on the demosincluded here as well. On Ladies and Gentlemen, "Cool Waves" is adiorama built with weepy vocals, darting flute, schmaltzy strings, buildingconcert bass drums, and a choir that's just begging for salvation. But itsone-minute demo included in this set seems no more complicated than the demosPierce made with his schoolmates in 1984, his former band Spacemen 3's firstrecordings. If the demo is a Polaroid, the album is Avatar. There's no way itcould have been cheap.
这种情感体验在其中收录的小样上也尤为明显。专辑中的“Cool Waves”由泣声、飞舞飘渺的长笛、低柔的弦乐、乐队大鼓以及唱诗班美妙的和声构成的立体模型，像是在祈求救赎。这一版的一分钟小样并不比1984年Pierce和他的同学在他前乐队“Spacemen 3”时的第一张专辑小样复杂，但若说样版是宝丽来，那正式专辑就是阿凡达，毫不廉价。
While Ladies and Gentlemen establishedSpiritualized as one of the supreme bands of the 90s, it was by no means anoverwhelming commercial success. It earned album of the year honors from NME in1997 and placed on year-end charts in The Village Voice, Q, and Uncut. But Ladiesand Gentlemen charted only as high as No. 4 in England. In the United States,it's sold slightly more than 111,000 copies-- about 20,000 less thanMerriweather Post Pavilion. To wit, Sony Music scrapped its plans for thisreissue in America, meaning it's available only through ATP's mail-orderservice. The disc did better by the band's legacy, one assumes, than it did forany label's bottom line.
虽然靠着《Ladies and Gentlemen》Spiritualized确立为90年代最杰出的乐队之一，但它在商业上也并非有压倒性的成功。它虽在1997年获得了NME的年度专辑奖，同时也出现在了《The Village Voice》《Q》《Uncut》的年终排行榜高位；但发行首周在英国仅仅排名第四，美区销量也仅11万1千多一点，比《Merriweather Post Pavilion》少了近两万张。也正因此，索尼音乐取消这张专辑在美国重新发行的计划，这意味着我们只能通过ATP的跨国邮寄服务买到它。但也有人认为，靠着乐队的这张唱片，唱片公司的收益要远高于其他任何唱片公司。
After all, it's an album mostly without aclear hit single, a massive production better enjoyed as a whole than in bitsand pieces. Though Spiritualized eventually released edits, remixes, orreworkings of "I Think I'm in Love", "Come Together", and"Electricity", those songs thrive best in the context of the album--in their original, much more grand iterations. "I Think I'm in Love",for instance, flows brilliantly from "Come Together" and, eightminutes later, its dénouement shapes the perfect non-introduction to the casualpiano of "All of My Thoughts". In the interim, Pierce reveals thebreadth of the band's ideas and influence. The first half combines Spacemen 3'sLaMonte Young-like 20th century composition (with its growling synthesizerdrone), dub, soul (with its thick, stunted bass line), American blues (with itstwisted harmonica howls), and folk (Pierce's subtle autoharp strums). The backhalf is a sassy, baritone saxophone-backed dialogue between Pierce'sself-confidence and his self-doubt: "I think that I can rock'n'roll,"he sings. "Probably just twisting," he answers. And on "ComeTogether", one of only a few Ladies and Gentlemen tunes you're likely tostill hear live, Pierce fancies himself a young man that's sad and fucked (aword he manages to use five times in as many minutes here) amid references tosuicide, heroin, and busted dreams.
毕竟，这张专辑确实基本上没有一首明确的热门单曲，这是一张整体欣赏比碎片化浏览要好得多的巨制唱片。尽管Spiritualized在随后发布了“I Think I'm in Love”、“Come Together”和“Electricity”的混音或改编版本，但这些歌曲在一整张专辑的背景下——在它们最原初、更宏伟的迭代中——表现得最好。例如，“I Think I'm in Love”这一优美的曲目与“Come Together”的无缝衔接，在历经这随即的八分钟后，而它的解决又引向“All of My Thoughts”随意而为一般的琴声开篇。在这些乐符间，Pierce展现了这一乐队思想和影响力的广度：前半部分延续融汇了乐队Spacemen 3惯用的LaMonte-Young式20世纪作曲(伴随着轰鸣低沉的合成器)——回响贝斯、灵魂乐(伴随着浑厚、极具屏障感的低声线)、美国布鲁斯(常有扭曲尖啸的口琴)和民谣(Pierce精妙的自鸣筝鸣)；后半段是Pierce在自信和自我怀疑之间辗转时的一段对话：“我想我还能摇滚。”他这样唱道；“可能只是错觉。”他又自答道。 在“Come Together”——你为数不多可能还能在现场听到的《Ladies and Gentlemen》中的歌曲之一——中Pierce把自己看成是一个忧伤还操蛋的年轻人(这个词“Fa(u)cked”他在这短短几分钟里用了五次)，生命中充斥着自杀、毒品和破灭的梦想云云。
Even "Broken Heart", the album'sballad and most beautiful moment, clocks in close to seven minutes. It needsevery one of them, too, since the song's overwhelming sadness depends entirelyon its length and its ability to establish an atmosphere. This is an album of emotionand empathy, and it's hard to capture feelings with a format. That's what ranksLadies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space alongside the best art: JasonPierce and a big band that included his ex-girlfriend and a whole slew ofpeople that soon became his ex-bandmates faithfully render the cycle of lovinganything-- the innocent exuberance, the bitter rejection, the episodic denial--in 70 perfect minutes. And even if you can't afford this version of thatachievement, you should have it on hand. One day, it'll come in handy. Afterall, "Spiritualized is used to treat the heart and soul."
即使是“Broken Heart”，这张专辑最民谣、最美丽的时刻，也延续了近7分钟的时间。但它也需要这其中的每一分钟，因为这首歌压倒性的伤感完全取决于它的时长和它由此建立起的氛围。这是一张关于情感、共情的专辑，而现实中很难用一种套路来捕捉感情，而这正是将《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》归于有史以来最好的艺术品之列的原因。Jason Pierce和这样一个大乐队——这其中包括他的前女友和一大批即将成为他前队友的人——在长达70分钟的黄金时刻里不加修饰地演绎了爱任意一个存在的存续周期——天真浪漫的亢奋激情、痛苦的决绝、时断时续的背弃。即使你负担不起这一版本高昂的价格，你也值得有一套置于手边。总有一天它将派上用场，毕竟，“Spiritualized”是用来疗愈内心和灵魂的。
译者有话讲:《Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space》的又一次特典将于9月10日与我们见面,届时请各位热爱Spiritualized\热爱《Ladies & Gentlemen》的同好们多多支持!
