Sonic Boom Offers Music From The Full Spectrum

01/28/08 7:00pm

Former Spacemen 3 guitarist Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember has a lot on his plate in 2008.

Under his Spectrum alter-ego, Kember is in the midst of a North American tour that will appropriately include a Feb. 2 in-store performance at Toronto's Sonic Boom at 7 p.m. and a show later that night at the Silver Dollar. A collaborative album recorded three years ago with Memphis, Tennessee artist/producer Jim Dickinson (Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Big Star) — billed as Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis and titled Indian Giver — is slated to make it into stores on March 1 via Birdman.

A Spectrum EP called Walking & Falling will be released by Mind Expansion Records in the spring, and the first Spectrum full-length since 1997's Forever Alien will follow later in the year. Kember has been working on the album with Fuxa's Randall Nieman.

Kember formed Spacemen 3 with Jason Pierce in Rugby, England in 1982, and they released four drug-fuelled albums before calling it quits in 1989. While Pierce went on to form Spiritualized, Kember issued recordings as Sonic Boom and Spectrum, and he's also recorded as E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research), whose most recent release was 2005's Worn To A Shadow. The 42 year old has also collaborated with Stereolab, Silver Apples, Jessamine and Yo La Tengo.

Here are the songs on Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis' Indian Giver:

"Mary"
"The Lonesome Death Of Johnny Ace"
"Take Your Time"
"Til Your Mainline Comes"
"When Tomorrow Hits"
"The Old Cow Died"
"Hey Man"
"Confederate Dead"
"Mary Reprise"