Primal Scream's Screamadelica
To be human is to yearn for transcendence. We desire it as a means of connecting and experiencing something greater than ourselves, sometimes as a means of escaping the confines of our current reality for another one entirely. As I move into the latter part of my 20s, dance music has emerged as my primary means of chasing that otherworldly feeling; a sonic safe space where I can reside while I allow my mind and body to give themselves over to the hypnotic polyrhythms that satisfy this all-too human desire.
I did not realize just how much I needed that place until I heard Primal Scream’s Screamadelica. What exactly caused me to revisit the Scottish rock band’s seminal 1991 release, I may never know. Maybe it was the recommendation of a friend or listener. Maybe it was a passing glimpse of the album’s vivid and endearing album cover while surfing the web. All I know is that I will be forever grateful that I did. Screamadelica is one of a handful of records in recent years that has opened up entirely new frontiers of musical exploration for me (you can be damn sure that I will be reviewing those other records in the future on here as well), and with it, the renewing joy of discovery.
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From the moment the disco beat and galloping Beggars Banquet-era Stones piano riff collide at the :51 mark of “Movin’ On Up,” the listener intuitively knows that they may never again experience a more enrapturing, kaleidoscopic aural joy. To call this ecstasy-fueled mash up of “Amazing Grace” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” a genre-bending triumph is an understatement. It is a veritable testament to the notion of influence that Oscar Wilde so glibly expressed as: “Talent borrows. Genius steals!”
Such is the MO of Bobby Gillespie and company as they wed their Rolling Stones obsession (listen to “Damaged” if additional proof is required) with the influences of house and rave culture, expanding the tent poles of rock and roll music in a way that contemporaries in Britain’s Manchester scene (here’s looking at you, Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses) could only dream of.
Primal Scream’s inspired cover of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Slip Inside This House” continues this trend, building on the psychedelic textures of the original in a nod to the similarities shared by dance and psych music (Note the lyrical amendment “Trip inside this house as you pass by” as further evidence in the song’s chorus).
“Don’t Fight It, Feel It” and “Higher Than The Sun” find the group dispatching their rock influences entirely for infectious, thumbing bass grooves. We give credit where credit is due on this blog, so it is here that Andrew Weatherall, UK DJ and producer of 8 songs on Screamadelica, must be acknowledged for his outsized contribution to the album’s revolutionary sound. His production is the reason that many of the album’s highlights – including the Beatles and Velvet Underground borrowing “Come Together” and “Loaded”, a remix of Primal Scream’s earlier song “I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have" – brim with a palpable excitement and seemingly endless sunshine.
“Loaded” begins with a question, a sample of dialogue from the counterculture film The Wild Angels: “Just what is it that you want to do?” The answer: “We wanna be free.” The spirit of Screamadelica certainly is. Like any dance record, there are sounds that are tied to the era in which it was written, but what makes this album so different, and dare I say, a classic, is the fierce imagination that brings many of rock’s classic sounds forward and transforms them into a neo-psychedelic celebration. It doesn’t so much ignore time and influence as transcend them, leaving in their place an experience of life-affirming bliss.
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If you like Screamadelica, check out:
Wildflower by The Avalanches
Golden Greats by Ian Brown
Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team
Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches by Happy Mondays
“Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend