Primal Scream are back out on tour again, and playing some unusual venues.
Having had to cancel a host of summer dates due to Bobby Gillespie’s accident – they missed out on several European and UK festivals and gigs when he fell from the stage and injured his back – since late summer the band have been back doing what they do best, playing incendiary shows to promote their new record.
They’re at Kilmarnock’s Grand Hall tonight, followed by The Alhambra in Dunfermline tomorrow.
Those gigs follow The Ironworks in Inverness and Motherwell’s Concert Hall earlier this week.
Relatively backwater venues in the grand gigging scheme, but the fact Primal Scream are playing places usually ignored by touring acts is typical of this most untypical band.
That approach mirrors lead singer Bobby Gillespie’s attitude to songwriting: keep moving on, never stand still, explore new avenues.
Their latest single Feeling Like A Demon Again is a simmering synth pop anthem which delves into areas previously untouched by Primal Scream.
It’s released on the band’s own First International label (through Ignition Records) and is taken from their critically acclaimed 11th studio album Chaosmosis, which was written and produced by Bobby, Andrew Innes and Bjorn Yttling.
Recorded in London, New York & Stockholm, critics agree that Chaosmosis is the freshest sounding album the band have ever made.
The ten songs that make up the album are by turns angry and euphoric, personal and political, sounding like the distillation of so much that has come before plus a shot into the future.
The exhilarating first single Where The Light Gets In features a duet with Sky Ferreira. Other guests on the album include Haim on backing vocals, good friends of the band since playing with them at Glastonbury two summers ago and Rachel Zeffira from Cat’s Eyes.
Guest musicians aside, Primal Scream are never deflected from their traditional “write songs first then present them to the band” approach.
Bobby Gillespie says: “We work more like artists than a rock band – jamming with a whole band to write songs is not our way.
“We’ll have tracks full of riffs and ideas, which Andrew and I will work up together, putting one thing with another to create a song. We work very instinctively – we go with what feels right.”
At the same time, Bobby is urging his audience to recognise that while Chaosmosis is a record written in the shadow of hard times, it’s not overtly political.
“The current political climate is deeply upsetting and we’re aware of it and opposed to it and we’d like to see something different,” says Gillespie.
“It can sound an angry record, but it’s also quite a personal record. I want to write about real situations, things I feel strongly about. But I also think the music’s becoming clearer … the lyrics are clearer.
“We’re better at letting things flow. Whereas 20 years ago it was f*****g painful trying to make a Primal Scream record, it was like hell. I’m clearer-headed now, I’m better expressing my feelings and what I want to say.
“I’m trying to make sense of my life, of the world and I’m trying to put it into a pop song.”
Collaborations and some clear influences put aside, the band has admitted: “we could try and be cool … but at the same time, we always loved the Stylistics or Tina Charles.
“The history of pop music is in our DNA.”
Try and pinpoint them further, and the nearest for this record you’ll come is Siouxsie and the Banshees. “We loved those records when we were teenagers, songs like Happy House or Spellbound, because they were great pop songs, but there was something dark and twisted about them as well. I think this record has a similar attitude.
“Art, politics, music … the people I love are the people who care about something, who care about beauty,” says Gillespie. “That’s what we’re trying to do here. And this album is beautiful.”
