#soul 1

[dagwolf]

Spacemen 3 "Soul 1" version from Forged Prescriptions

[koucholate]

give me my fucking soul back, you slut

Nah

[chouls]

DEEP SERENITY

[gamblingwithhappiness-blog1]

For reasons I can’t really explain, my favorite instrumental

When I got Spacemen 3′s Perfect Prescription record at the most hipster record store in Ann Arbor back when I was in high school, I was lucky enough to get a version with some old b-sides tacked onto it. One of them being “Soul 1.”

I don’t remember the first time I listened to this song -- I don’t think I listened to the album in full and then continued to the bonus tracks, but rather it came up on shuffle at some random time -- but at a point it became my favorite instrumental.

It’s kind of dumb, because this song is so simple, and maybe if you’re gonna go through the trouble of having a favorite instrumental it should be something amazing and complex? But this song kills me. It’s this repeating circular guitar line with another guitar soloing above it, with some slow drums eventually growing louder and a horn section butting in every once in a while. Its quiet, tired spiral seems to me so fraught with epiphanies and inspiration and excitement. Maybe it’s supposed to be death, but it could also be a new beginning, that feeling of laying in bed exhausted after a great day and realizing it was a great day. “Soul 1″ conducts me whenever I listen to it. I know exactly where it’s going every time, because it’s not especially hard to predict, but still it sledgehammers me and blows my mind. It’s so beautiful, even as it’s nothing, practically filler. It’s so simple, yet I’ve never heard anything like it.

Song of the day: “Soul 1″ by Spacemen 3