Spaceman :: Six Million Miles From Nowhere
Photo: Leticia Zica
Hailing from Suffolk, a ceremonial county bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west, Spaceman, formerly known as Stephen Munson, lead vocalist of the underground UK jokers Living In Texas from the 1980s, later adopted the melodic moniker after a close call with death in the late 1990s from a suspected heart attack. You can hear the cold knock of kinetic knuckles on the mortal mahogany doors sending endless shivers up anyone’s spine. Something shifted within the musician’s heart, mind, body, and soul as lyrical light epically emerged from the cheap vanilla blinds, revealing a bright future outside of a Persian hospital. Munson took this as a spiritual sign to apply poetic pressure to the psychedelic petal of his tonal transportation. Immediately getting to work recording several songs between 1999 and 2000 as a solo artist for the first time in his career, the veteran musician wrapped up production of his debut album “Six Million Miles From Nowhere” in 2019, and in 2020, just before the paralysis of the global pandemic shook the planet and its people to their very core, the songwriter had established a cosmic collection of sights and sounds from a completely different reality. After connecting with Confuse (Christelle Canot), one half of In Case Of Fire, producer of “Six Million Miles From Nowhere,” multi-instrumentalist for Adam Naas, Merryn Jeann, and Jeanne Added, the two set out to capture something sophisticated in the year 2018, and we’re here to try and unlock some of those melodic mysteries. The album was captured between Marseille and Paris at Blue Sky Studios, with musicians from around the world helping lock in the atmospheric anatomy that makes the album so meditative and mercilessly melodic.
Mastered by Mikey Young and mixed/arranged by Adam Rothschild, the album features 25 transcendental tracks that flow like a fever across the bloodstream of its listeners’ arms. Countless moments of esoteric ecstasy reflect the pure essence of Munson’s ability to shape-shift between realms of new wave and the most blissful ballads. Featuring tracks like “Martin's Garden,” “Bleed,” “Too Many Songs About Love,” and “Requiem For The Seventies,” the album’s intimate interior will send soft signals to the heart moments before breaking it into a million precious pieces. Released on the French-based label Rescue + Return, “Six Million Miles From Nowhere” is brilliant and breathtaking, and hopefully the beginning of a long, fruitful resurgence of an underground genius.
