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Give Out Press Release 2
"Give Out But Don't Give Up" is Primal Scream's thoroughly astonishing follow - up, an album that finds musical mastermind Bobby Gillespie taking inspiration from the past - Let It Bleed, P - Funk, Bolan, Stax/Volt - and using it to create something utterly fresh. The endlessly listenable results are a crazy quilt of two - fisted guitar stomp, Memphis soul and bodacious groovitude. It's boss.
The album features a legendary lineup of talent: production courtesy of Tom Dowd (Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett), George Drakoulias (Black Crowes) and cosmic funk - god George Clinton -
plus the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, the Memphis Horns and the keyboard stylings of Jim Dickinson (Big Star, Rolling Stones) and Benmont Tench (Heartbreakers).
- "Rocks" is the first single, complete with a video directed by Matthew Amos (who did "Movin' On Up" and has also worked with Suede). Look for Primal Scream on tour in May.
Pure rock'n'roll is dead? Are you kidding? Primal Scream, the highly original rockers from Glasgow, Scotland, who turned the rock world on its status -
quo ear with their American debut album, Screamadelica, are once again poised to hit the ear - drum with their new release on Sire Records.
Spawned in the post - industrial landscape of Glasgow, Primal Scream gorges on inspirational diamonds from the past - from hot psychadelica to hardcore punk to pure blues and soul - letting them mate with its own unique sound and soul, as yet another stimulus to pursue, hew and spew back into the rock maelstrom. As one British critic put it, "Primal Scream not only walks it like they talk it but enter the pole - vault and limbo championships to boot."
If Screamadelica, which gave volcanic birth to such hits as "Loaded," "Come Together," "Movin' On Up," and the spiritually - napalmed "Shine Like Stars," (featuring punk godfather Jah Wobble), was the extraordinary exploratory mission into the rock unknown, then Give Out But Don't Give Up returns to the mothership with a vengeance. It burns a path through the garden of earthly delights of Memphis soul, '70's Stones, B.B. King blues, P - Funk, and then drop - kicks it into Primal orbit. Says Scream front - man Bobby Gillespie: "It's the record we've always wanted to make but never had the opportunity or the money. By the way, it's rock'n'roll, not rock. There's a big difference - rock don't swing."
The new album was forged over the past 18 months in studios and hotel rooms from Chalk Farm, England, to Memphis to Los Angeles, under sapphire direction from Tom Dowd, the man who mined Aretha and countless other soul gems from the deep caverns of the '60s and '70s. Stones' collaborator Jim Dickinson was there along with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, the Memphis horns, and Bill Clinton's brother George who produced and remixed "Funky Jam."
For Gillespie and his mates, music is more than mere sound. Says Gillespie in a thick brogue: "The healing power of music is vastly underestimated. It's a way to relieve tensions, to get the poisons out of the body, music is a way to love people, an example of how good we all can be. It's a form of liberation and where there's freedom, there's hope. Our hope is to make strange and beautiful records that take the process one step further."
"Listen to the lyrics on the album," he adds. "They'll tell you everything you want to know about the band."
It was in the bustling Glascow music scene in 1984 when Bobby Gillespie took time off from another seminal Scottish group, The Jesus And Mary Chain, to join forces with guitarist Andrew Innes and guitarist Robert Young, forming the group that would redefine and reinvent the expressive potentials of pop. A year later, with Gillespie still touring with The Jesus And Mary Chain, Primal Scream released their first single, "All Fall Down," followed by "Crystal Crescent" in 1986.
The group's debut album, Sonic Flower Groove, was released in 1987 on the Warner subsidiary, Elevation. Next came the single "Ivy Ivy Ivy," on their new independent label, Creation, which was followed by "Loaded," Andrew Weatherall's stripped down/funked - up remix which proved a turning point for the group.
The drastic dance remix became an instant club staple and Top 20 U.S. chart hit, and was the band's discovery of dance music's open fields and limitless possibilities - while keeping their original killer rock instincts intact. "Come Together" consolidated Primal Scream's evocative mix of rock and dance and was their second Top 30 UK smash.
In '90, the EP Come Together gave American audiences their first taste of the Primal's scream. They embarked on an extensive round of UK touring, which would eventually bring together the perfect musical components for their bold, gold album, Screamadelica.
"Primal Scream never deserted rock'n'roll - they just introduced it to some interesting new acquaintances," says Face magazine in a recent cover story on the band. And with Give Out But Don't Give Up, Primal Scream meets them all, from the Memphis - sound soul - chant of "Give Out," to the moon - music, jazz/rock of "Funky Jam"; from the harmonica - screaming straight blues of "Sad and Blue," to a Mick Jagger - singing - gospel song "Jesus"; to their first single, "Rocks," a straight, pure shouting, kick - dead rock'n'roll stomp.
With their feet on loyal alternative ground - yet poised to hit the rock'n'roll tidal wave big in America - Primal Scream has looked back, recaptured the essence of something very nearly lost, and projected it into the '90s. Says one British rock journalist, "Primal Scream have slung the Bentley into reverse, gone back to the blueprints, and crafted their own unique musical hybrid."
There are many bets that Primal Scream and Give Out But Don't Give Up will prove that it might just be a better place than where we drive today.
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