Primal Scream
Vanishing Point
burning wheel/get duffy/kowalski/star/if they move, kill em/out of the void stuka/medication/motorhead/trainspotting/long life Creation, 12/CD, released 7th July 1997

Primal Scream release their fifth album, Vanishing Point, on Creation in 7th July 1997.
The studio where they worked for the best part of a year is like a den, a cramped windowless box in North London that is so organic it looked like it had grown out of the ground. Airfix models of World War 2 fighter planes hang from the ceiling, the days stupidest news paper headlines are pasted over any available wall space, covering the cracks in the plaster work. Banks of ancient analogue synths stand on top of state of the art samplers, guitars sit strewn over the floor, a battered drum kit stands dusty in the corner. The singer tells you that the record theyre making is like a Sam Peckinpah film...slow motion with loads of shooting. You have no doubt in your mind that this is the best record youll hear this year.
Vanishing Point emerges after months and months of hibernation. It is everything you could have hoped it would be. Musically, it is a band filling a blank canvas with whatever style they fancy. The picture is painted with the ominous rumbling bass heavy wall of sound (the first single/statement of intent Kowalski), the tabla led, sun drenched balearic ballad (Star), the lumbering mogadon dub symphony (Stuka), the early 70s New York punk rock (Medication) and the camp-as-you-like throbbing electro metal cover version (Motorhead). The band are Primal Scream and all those people who thought that Screamadelica couldnt be bettered are about to be blown away...
Vanishing Point was recorded between January & December 1996 at the Screams studio in Chalk Farm. The record was produced & mixed by Primal Scream & Brendan Lynch (except Trainspotting, which was produced by the Scream & Andrew Weatherall). The albums title is a nod to the speed fuelled cult 70s road movie Vanishing Point, whose main protagonist, Kowalski, is heard sampled on the track of the same name. The record features contributions from The Memphis Horns (Star), Augustus Pablo (melodica on Star, his first guest apperance on anyone elses record), Glen Matlock (bass on Medication), Marco Nelson (bass on Burning Wheel) & Darth Vader (vocals on Motorhead).
Primal Scream are Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, Robert Young, Martin Duffy & Gary Mani Mounfield.
Primal Scream biography, may 1997
The fact that many still see Primal Scream as the result of a chance collision between Ecstasy culture & indiedom illustrates how misunderstood the band have been. They never deserted rock n roll - they just introduced it to some interesting new acquaintances. The Face, 1994
You know what they say? Behind every great song theres a great pill. Bobby Gillespie, 1994
They have gone straight to the heart of the territory that spawned their most innovative work in Screamadelica, that murky, filthy fucker of a love & war zone between dance & rock n roll. When I last saw Innes & Bobby...they had just got back from their Birmingham studio where they were doing some mixing and they looked more focused than Id ever seen them. They both had that giveaway glint in the eye that you only get when you are right on the fucking case. Irvine Welsh,1997
Primal Scream are perhaps the single strongest reason why we in this office do what we do. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you to decide. Having made some of the most awe inspiring records ever pressed onto vinyl, having played some of the most roof lifting gigs ever witnessed by these eyes, having soundtracked too many lost weekends & lost weeks to mention, having looked like the elegantly wasted last gang in town in every picture you see...Primal Scream represent all that is great and good about being a rock n roll band.
The Primal Scream story proper starts with their year one record, Screamadelica. Previous to this, the band, a core of singer Bobby Gillespie & Robert Young (the Throb) & Andrew Innes, had made two albums (Sonic Flower Groove and Primal Scream, alternately Byrdsy and hard rockin ), a handful of brilliant singles and earned a reputation as one of the countrys most fuck off live rock n roll bands, living, breathing and partaking in the spirit of the greats - The Stones, The Stooges, The MC5, The New York Dolls & Funkadelic.Sucking in the spirit of the times, the band found themselves getting more & more fired up by music & the surrounding culture, popping pills, preaching the acid house gospel. The result, a vinyl soundclash between album track Im Losing More Than Ill Ever Have & producer Andrew Weatherall, Loaded was a stoned acid house swagger that offered a blueprint to be ripped off by two bit indie bands the country over for the next couple of years. The shot in the arm that was Loaded (and its Balearic as you like follow up Come Together) in no way prepared people for what was coming next...
Screamadelica was released to universal acclaim in September 1991. Screamadelica is one of the few records that you cant over rate and that will probably never date. Everyone loves it, it covers all bases with total unashamed confidence. Put simply, it sums up the time, from the hyper space blues of Higher Than The Sun (described at the time by Alan McGee as being Anarchy In The U.K. for the 90s), to the stoned out of my mind ambience of Shine Like Stars to the Stonesd-out-of-its-mind rush of Movin On Up. Screamadelica would go on to be voted best album of the decade so far by Select magazine. Odds on it being in the pole position at the end of the decade are currently evens.
As Primal Scream take Screamadelica cross country, the public finally get a chance to see the greatest rock n roll circus around. Warming up with Dr Alex Paterson (The Orb), rocking out on stage in front of thousands of pilled up & blissed out acid house kids, peaking with a mashd up Higher Than The Sun and a strung out Loaded, closing down to the sound of two hours of Andrew Weatherall on the decks. Late night, every night, no support bands, no messing around. The band would roll out of town to an inspirational soundtrack of Sly & The Family Stone and the MC5.
The band, now in full on work machine mode, released the Dixie Narco e.p. a couple of months after Screamadelica. The lead track, Movin On Up, saw the band in Top 10 for the first time, while on the flip side, two of the Screams finest recordings were showcased (the edge of sanity version of Dennis Wilsons Carry Me Home & the 10 minute disco mantra Screamadelica). After a handful more gigs, culminating in a headline show at Glastonbury, the band retired to the studio to start work on the next record.
Two years down the line, Give Out But Dont Give Up, preceded by one of the greatest party records of all time, Rocks (their biggest single to date), was met by cries of dance traitors. The record, a semi-return to the rock n roll roots of Primal Scream, was recorded in Memphis, produced by Tom Dowd, mixed by George Clinton, George Drakoulias & Brendan Lynch. It sounded like an up all night party that you wanted to be invited to. It rocked. In a must have seemed like a wise idea at the time scenario, the band take Give Out But Dont Give Up on the road big style, putting themselves up for a back breaking year long tour (headlining the Reading Festival, supporting the equally rock n roll Depeche Mode on a U.S. marathon, playing the Big Day Out in Australia with Ministry & Hole). Their triumphant British tour sees Andrew Weatheralls Sabres Of Paradise support and The Chemical (nee. Dust) Brothers and Kris Needs DJing every night. Give Out..., although ridiculed by many around its release, came to life on stage. The band recreate the hedonistic party atmosphere of the Screamadelica dates, going one stage further at an all nighter at Brixton Academy when joined by George Clinton and a 20 piece Funkadelic Orchestra. By the time the band stagger, battered, out of 1994, a lenghty lay off period is called for to recharge batteries.
Emerging from hibernation in February 1996, the Primals contribute a slow motion instrumental to the soundtrack of the movie of Irvine Welshs Trainspotting. The bands relationship with Irvine goes back to early 94, when he interviewed the band for I-D magazine, shortly after The Acid House had been published. The bands first single release in nearly two years is a collaboration with Mr. Welsh and king of all dubheads, Adrian Sherwood. Released to huge critical acclaim, The Big Man & The Scream Team Meet The Barmy Army Uptown is made available for one week only, selling out straight away in the run up to the England/Scotland Euro 96 clash. Scotland lose, the single fares better doing one week of service in the charts.
For the bulk of 1996, Primal Scream hole up in a tiny rehearsal studio in Camden. Over the course of the summer, they record 10 or so tracks, ranging between Rohypnol paced dub, early 70s New York punk and camp-as-you-like electro throbbing covers of Motorhead songs. Bobby Gillespie describes the work in progress as being like a Sam Peckinpah film...slow motion with loads of shooting. He is spot on. Autumn 1996 sees The Stone Roses motor mouth bass player Gary Mani Mounfield join the Scream Team in the biggest and best premier league transfer of the season. Mani arrives in time to play on several tracks on the album, adding the ominous rumble to Kowalski & the Darth Vader mask to Motorhead.
And now weve got Vanishing Point. Inspired by Richard Sarafians speed fuelled 70s road movie of the same name, co-produced by the band and Brendan Lynch (who worked on a few tracks on Give Out...), the album ropes in variously Augustus Pablo, The Memphis Horns, Glen Matlock & Andrew Weatherall, yet, at the end of the day, its more of a Primal Scream record than any they've made before. In a year when most bands talk about taking risks & making avant garde records, Primal Scream have made a record that stands as the natural progression from Screamadelica & Give Out..., although it is as much of a departure from Give Out... as that was from its predecessor. Vanishing Point doesnt follow anyone elses path. It leads.
And its because they make records like this that we do what we do. Know what I mean?

Primal Scream are
Bobby Gillespie
Andrew Innes
Robert Young
Martin Duffy
Gary Mani Mounfield

This Press release courtesy of Robin Turner at Heavenly. Copyright © Heavenly/Creation.

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