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Spiritualized announce new album, And Nothing Hurt

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 12 June 2018

Spiritualized have announced that they will release a new album, ‘And Nothing Hurt’, on 7 Sep, before playing a one-off show at the Hammersmith Apollo later the same month.

“Making this record on my own sent me more mad than anything I’ve done before”, says frontman Jason Pierce. “We’d been playing these big shows and I really wanted to capture that sound we were making but, without the funds to do [that], I had to find a way to work within the constraints of what money I had. So I bought a laptop and made it all in a little room in my house”.

Having never worked outside a traditional recording studio before, he initially found the process slow going, as he taught himself a whole new set of techniques from scratch. “I didn’t have all the short cuts people use as when they’re making records”, he says. “I just sat there for weeks… for months… moving every level up bit by bit just to try to get the sounds right”.

Eventually, though, he found ways of achieving what he wanted, in particular creating a grand orchestral sound without access to the necessary musicians. “With a bit of trial and lot of error, I found ways of doing something that’s quite simple if you’ve got the resources”, he recalls. “I spent two weeks listening to classical records and strumming the chord that I wanted on my guitar. When I found something I wanted to match, I’d sample that bit and go for the next chord and try to match that. It took weeks, trying to put together and layer convincing string sounds”.

In interviews conducted during the recording of the album, Pierce indicated that this would be the last Spiritualized album. Looking back now, he says: “I was quite sincere about that and I still feel like it might be the case. It was such hard work. I found myself going crazy for so long. It’s not like there’s no coming back, I’m fine now… it’s just such a hard thing to do, to make a record like this on your own. It’s almost as if, if I’m not pushing myself to point of madness, it’s not going to be right”.

“I think the biggest goal is to make something that’s worthy of all that time and effort”, he goes on. “And the more time and effort, the bigger the goal. I knew I had to make something that was good enough that it should be made. And a massive positive about making the record is that we get to play it live. That’s always the most joyous thing; this amazing thing that seems to go right through the roof”.

Tickets for the Hammersmith Apollo show go on sale on 15 Jun. You can watch the video for the album’s first single, ‘I’m Your Man’, here: