PRIMAL SCREAM
They called Screamadelica the album of the 905; now PRIMAL SCREAM'S Exterminator is the first great album of 2000. Bobby Gillespie is back on top, and he's titres: Mark Robertson
MONTHS AND MONTHS HAVE BEEN spent looking back misty—eyed into the depths of time. pouring over the good. bad and mediocre of the last thousand years. lilsewhere on the planet. however. a group of raggedy guitar and sampler-wielding ruffians were creating an assimilation of now. an album that’s a startling document of today‘s Britain. Ironically enough. it is by one-time retrogression. Primal Scream.
The Scream Team have come up with lirtcrminumr. a record as bleak and dark as 199] 's .S't'n'umudolit'u was celebratory and blissed-out. A lot can happen in nine years it would appear. but once again Primal Scream are musically documenting the age they live in. ‘We wanted to make a record that sounded like it was tnade in a city in Britain at this time. under these circumstances.‘ explains Scream frontman. mouthpiece and vocalist Bobby Gillespie. ‘Musically and lyrically. we wanted to reflect the industrial. urban environment. What you see and how you feel. We're all city boys — products of our environment. Concrete. metal. paranoid. intensity. density. It‘s not a pastoral record.
‘We wanted to make a modern blues record.‘ he continues. ‘But not like traditional blues. so we wrote songs about living in a big city. We wanted it to be really hard and really direct and dense. The last album ll‘)97‘s Vanishing Point] was more dubby. spacey and kind of fractured. Even the voice on this record is more rhythmic. less melodic. It's everything
8 THE lIST 7—20 la" C'CC
masters of
'As musicians,
we wanted it to be. It's consistently fucking righteous.'
The line-up for the recording of
lz'vn'rminatm‘ has been augmented greatly since Vanishing Point. The brass section has now become a permanent fixture. as has drummer Darrin Mooney and inimitable ex- Stone Rose. Mani. on bass. The changes. it would seem. are for the better. ‘lt’s‘ more physical. it‘s got a real attack.~ (iillespie states. ‘We‘ve always been conscious of getting a groove going. A lot of other bands have no rhythmic push or pull in what they do. We've got so much more freedom as singers and players because we‘ve got a great band. Before it was like 75”}. but now it's all there.‘
Andrew Weatherall. (ieorge Clinton. My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields. hip hop 1)] The .»\utomator. dub legend Augustus Pablo: few could claim such a diverse clutch of collaborators. All have made some contribution to the Scream sound. with (iillespie. Robert Young. Martin Duffy and Andrew lnncs acting as the catalyst off which guest performers. producers and
we've got big contributors vibe and spark. Primal
ears and small brains and we listen to a lot
of music.’ Bobby Gillespie
Scream appear to get the most out of
their collaborators. and it gives their sound an edge.
‘We learn things but we make it our own.‘ says (iillespie. 'lt's not like we sound like the (‘an or the MCS. we bring our own thing to it. As musicians. we‘ve got big ears and
small brains and we listen to a lot of
music. That's what you're supposed to
journalist
do when you’re a fucking musician.‘
(iillespie. his excitement fuelled by the success of pre-tour rehearsals is. contrary to some of his recent press coverage. a genial interviewee. llc raises his voice only once during our conversation. at the mention of an interview published late last year where he was painted as a trouble- making ego maniac. The article. in a major national inusic publication. tried a spot of Bobby-baiting and came off worst. it would seem. 'We were being accused of being musical cowards.’ (iillespie bellows. "How we hide behind this wall of art rock instead of being commercial. We get hit records "Kowalski" got to number seven or eight and it sounds like a junkyard having a nervoUs breakdown.‘
It was also claimed that the title of recent single 'Swastika liyes’ was in some way condoning or glamorising Nazism. ‘We did interviews all over the world and no one asked about “Swastika liyes" except him.’ says (iillespie. ‘lt wasn't even the that wanted the confrontation. it was his editor. l heard Jo Whiley and she’s like “Primal Scream ‘Swastika liyes’ ~ a brilliant tune". That's Radio I in the afternoon. so how come they don't have a problem with it and these people have'.’ They’re just looking for an angle.‘
The lirtvrminumr world tour takes (,iillespie and his cohorts to Japan. Singapore and Australia initially. with dates in the L'K scheduled for March. 'By then we should be cooking.'