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From here to Infinity
Primal Scream-Vanishing (Creation)
It's A bright night. The car's waiting just outside, loaded up, ready to
roll. Ready to make a getaway from myriad fuck-ups and horrid
situations, to speed towards a horizon packed with possibilities. The
leather trousers are still hanging in the closet. The Confedemte flag's
flying at half-mast in the backyard. The past might as well be yours;
the future's theirs... Let's go!
Three years on from the revivalist rock'n'roll cabaret of 'Give Out But
Oon't Give Up; it's a sleeker, freakier, determinedly modernist
incarnation of Primal Scream that confronts us on 'Vanishing Point'
Inspired by the treshy, cultist and - with cmshing inevitability -
toxically inclined mad movie of the same name, much of the music here
evokes movement, the open road; a sense of watching the world go by,
slightly detached and disorientated, while cocooned inside a speeding
car. The purpose and momentum on many of these songs is palpable; a
certain dynamic that's coupled with an evident, precious determination
to hammer and bend their many influences into something new. Hence we
find Bobby Gillespie in the NME describing 'Vanishing Point' with
demented eloquence, as a "psychedelic, high-energy punk mck'n'roll dub
album" and talking about the Scream as an "experimental" band, rether
than trying to shoehorn them into a classic rock'n'roll lineage. And
hence the presence of soul legends The Memphis Horns, dub legend
Augustus Pablo and punk loserilegend Glen Matlock, ripped out of
context and hurled into spacious, stange, frequently remarkable new
soundscapes.
For, put simply, Primal Scream have returned to the environs of dance
music; to the territories of 'Screamadelica' But returned with new
experiences, techniques, famous friends, battered psyches and -
crucially - knowledge of fallibility. There's nothing so perfectly
constructed as the emotional arc - trecing the true Ecstasy experience
from coming up, through sustained euphoria, to comedown - of that
landmark album (still, let it be said, one of the '90s finest records).
Rather, 'Vanishing Point' is a moody, volatile bastard: becalmed,
homicidal, mature, out of control, pamlysed, twitchy, deeply confused. A
bit like Ecstasy these days, it's far more unpredictable, a
pharmaceutical lucky dip.
So when the band are at their most stmightforwardly dance-influenced -
say, on the marvellous 'Kowalski' - the vibe is darker, meaner, more
aggressive and funky, like the techno of the likes of The Chemical
Brothers that dominates now. If 'Screamadelica' showcased a rock band
undergoing metamorphosis - reacting to the uplifting, invariably
celebretory sounds of acid and Balearic house that contextualised it at
the tum of the decade - then 'Vanishing Point' is equally informed by
fucked-up big beats and the dirtiest trip-hop; by dub house and the way
techno has become mom organic, has discovered a grimy humanity and wider
palette of emotions in the past couple of years.
A wild record, then. One which shits viciously over 'Give Out.. 's
contrived munch. And one which will make the perfect soundtmck for those
long, frezzled drives to and from this summer's festivals. C'mon, get in
the fucking car - it really is time to go now.
'Vanishing Point' starts with an epically long fade-in: tablas, sitars,
deep space probe bleeps, wheezing organ, tuning up, tuning in, distant
thunder, apocalypse pending. When the beats and the song eventually
arrive, 'Burning Wheel' reveals itself to sound a little like royally
addled Rolling Stones tmpped in an echo chamber. Essentially, the Scream
here are reclaiming psychedelia as a futuristic musical concept mther
than a retrogressive one, treating it to massive clouds of dub FX. The
result is magical, something even Gillespie's familiarly limpid vocals
can't harm. "If you could see what I can see/Feel what I feel/When my
head is on fire/When I'm a burning wheel", he moans, still flaunting his
tiresomely superior schtick as debauchery guru (an ugly memory remains
with this writer of Gillespie moronically dedicating the look-
ma-I'm-fucked-hurrah 'Damaged' to Kurt Cobain on the day he died).
Only later do his allusions to drug use become less glamorous, more
ominous. 'Medication' is, superficially at least, a lean and edgy revamp
of 'Rocks', and is 'Vanishing Point"s one remotely duff tmck. But,
before language devolves into dog barks, you can hear Gillespie
reassessing his life: "I don't wanna hang around wfth you/Don't wanna
see you turn blue", he howls, and the pertinence of one of this year's
Scream buzzwords - Redempdon - becomes ever more apparent...
Doubly so on 'Stuka' Doorbells ring, samples and squiggly analog synth
riffs flit from speaker to speaker, an industrial- strength reggae
bassline hits migmine consistency - everything is compellingly pamnoid
before Gillespie even opens his mouth. But when he does... the voice is
cold, robo-distorted. "If you play wfth fire you're gonna get
burned/Some Of my friends are gonna die young", he intones, chillingly
amoml, as if anaesthetised by trauma. It's a landmark moment for Primal
Scream, all the more affecting for its emotionless - rether than
desperetely emoting - delivery.
What else, then? Christ... Three superb instrumentals: 'Get Duffy' moody
mutant cocktail dub, with Martin Duffy tinkling away seductively on
piano like he did on those lovely old Felt sides; fuzzily groovy
headnod-a- thon 'Trainspotting'; and, best of all, 'If They Move, Kill
'Em', brilliantly smooth soundtmck funk, featuring a sitar break of
inspired incongruity. A daft, digital stomp through 'Motorhead' that
introduces big bad unwittingly tacky rock to shiny happy knowingly tacky
disco, with the kind of success the eternally cmpulous U2 strived for
and failed to pull off on 'Discotheque'
Then there's 'Star', 'Vanishing Point"s second single, as weightless as
'Kowalski' is heavy Ushered in by the venemble Augustus Pablo's
melodica, it emerges as a beautiful and potent milying cry, a song about
self- respect and the belief that ordinary people - however hard they
struggle - can actually change the world. Hackneyed though the lyrics
may be, there's an elusive, nebulous quality here - inspiration,
spirituality, even soul - that Primal Scream have long claimed is theirs
in abundance, but rarely shown they possess. Hearing Gillespie
delicately "sing this song for everyone who stands up for thek dghts"
makes you think of his fierce pride in his tmde unionist father and his
efforts to mobilise the rock'n'roll elite behind the sacked Liverpool
dockers. It is a tmnscendentally heroic moment.
And one which illuminates 'Vanishing Point'; a true rock'n'roll
fucked-up dub symphony for the post-fucked-up soul survivors. Back in
the car, dawn's approaching and the tape's spun round to the very last
treck, 'Long Life' A dislocated relative of 'Higher Than The Sun', it
sounds barely there, totally bissed out, fading away, utterly beautiful.
And Bobby's almost gone, too, but occasionally he floats out of
unconsciousness and nearly into focus, and he's singing, "Live a long
fife," weirdly at peace, through to the other side. Home. Safe.
That's it. It's been a long, strange trip?
Oh sure, sure. 8
John Mulvey
Originally Appeared in Vox August, 1997
Copyright © Vox
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