By John Norris @jonnynono

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He's got a long and hard-won reputation as an obsessive perfectionist, that Jason Pierce, and he lived up to it again in the creation of Spiritualized's excellent new Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. In fact, in the weeks since this edition of Face Time was shot, Pierce took his seventh album back to the mixing board for yet more tweaks, in advance of its release this month.

They probably weren't needed. It's another stunning work, one whose main recording was done in the front room of Pierce's UK home--sessions sometimes complicated  by ongoing medical treatment that sometimes left him quite debilitated, and which we discuss in this conversation at New York's Ace Hotel. Pierce also talks about his foray to Iceland to record strings, and the album's live debut, an unannounced start-to-finish performance in October at London's Royal Albert Hall. Maybe most significantly, the man who stirred many fond memories a couple of years back with grandly staged revivals of Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space in its entirety says looking back doesn't interest him nearly as much as making "new, epic music now."

That he has done, and as evidence we've included the powerful video for the rousing suite of a lead single, "Hey Jane". For more evidence, you'll need to wait for next week's release of Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. Until then, enjoy this week's Face Time with a man who's just about as gifted as anyone we know at making pain sound sweetly majestic: Jason Pierce, of Spiritualized.