Album Reviews

Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, released in September 1991, captured late 80s/early 90s UK rave culture’s peak. Unlike that era’s other UK “guitar bands” making dance music, Primal Scream was a Rolling Stones-esque rock band that—with the help of producers including Andrew Weatherall, The Orb, Terry Farley, and Hypnotone as well as singer Denise Johnson—drew from acid house in a seamless transition towards the current time. While it now sounds a bit dated, it remains a well-produced, relevant piece of rock history whose energy transcends any stylistic setbacks.

. In 1990, DJ Andrew Weatherall remixed Primal Scream’s “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” as “Loaded,” a complete overhaul bearing almost no resemblance to the original. As “Loaded” became the band’s biggest hit, frontman Bobby Gillespie (formerly the drummer of The Jesus & Mary Chain) expressed distaste for the UK’s current rock scene. “I don’t think we can be accused of jumping on any bandwagon,” he told Melody Maker. “The whole rock scene is a fucking joke. Most of the bands leave me cold. Apart from The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Cramps, all the gigs I’ve been to recently have been incredibly dull. A rave or a club is an entirely different thing. The music is energetic and the people have an adventurous spirit. The whole house music scene has the same kind of vibrancy that punk used to have and that’s why so many young kids are into it.” Combining psychedelia, rock, dance, soul, and gospel, Primal Scream spent the next year recording Screamadelica, still their most widely renowned work.

For Screamadelica’s 30th anniversary, this lineup’s remaining primary members Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes prepared Demodelica, a previously unreleased Screamadelica work-in-progress compilation released on 2LP, CD, and cassette by Sony UK. (It’s unavailable stateside. When Creation Records dissolved in 2000, Sony UK acquired the catalog to which Sire/Warner still controls American distribution. Obtaining the UK/EU Demodelica import isn’t difficult, though some might find it a bit pricey.) These demos sourced from DATs (which in turn came from cassettes) feature eight out of ten (not counting the second “Higher Than The Sun”) Screamadelica songs; none of Weatherall’s early “Loaded” mixes survive, and there were no demos for the cover of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Slip Inside This House” (initially recorded for a Roky Erickson tribute compilation). It does, however, feature the song “Screamadelica,” a Dixie-Narco EP track written too late for its namesake album.

Despite the name, Demodelica’s 16 tracks range from sketches to nearly finished songs, coming from Primal Scream’s Hackney studio (established with “Loaded” royalties), a spare room in Innes’ Isle of Dogs flat, and the professional Eden and Jam facilities. The Hackney demos are rather unpolished, ranging from a rough albeit mostly complete “Movin’ On Up” to a recording of “Inner Flight”’s just-composed vocal melody. On the Isle of Dogs demos tracked with a Tascam 4-track recorder, Andrew Innes used an Akai S1000 sampler most prominently found in “Higher Than The Sun”’s soundscapes and these “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” demos’ bombast. The Eden Studios takes of “Shine Like Stars” and “Screamadelica” strip away the finished versions’ excess production, and compared to Weatherall’s finished mix, the latter’s relative brevity especially shines. As essentially finished tracks sent to Screamadelica’s remix producers, the Jam Studios monitor mixes (and the EMI Publishing Studio “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” mix) spotlight the album’s rather conventional core.

While it proves more than the average vault-dive cash grab, Demodelica is still mostly for Primal Scream superfans and completists; anyone who buys the demos album already loves the finished product. Even then, some might find this 55-minute collection light on the dance material (even though that’s the whole point here). It’s surely the most interesting Screamadelica reissue/archive material yet (other 30th anniversary commemorations include a 12” singles box and a picture disc album repress, while the 20th anniversary set rounded up previously released material), though Sony’s exhaustively milked this era: why hasn’t (the equally praised and in my opinion superior) XTRMNTR, for example, received any major reissue treatment?

Anyway, the 180g Pallas-pressed Demodelica 2LP, cut by Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering at AIR, is flat and almost dead silent. The sound isn’t spectacular (as expected of 30-year-old demos), but there’s still a smooth, transparent top end. The spot-varnished direct-to-board gatefold jacket looks nice, though Jon Savage’s liner notes (included on a minimally designed four-page insert) are a mess. He excerpts insightful (albeit redundant) recent interviews with Gillespie and Innes, except editing seems non-existent. (The liner notes are dated to July 2021, which maybe implies harsh printing/pressing deadlines.) That aside, Demodelica is a high-quality vinyl release. For the proper Screamadelica album, I’d recommend the 2015 Creation/Sony UK/EU 180g pressing, done at Optimal from the original 1991 UK metal parts. It’s a bit bright, though it’s affordably priced and likely the best vinyl version available.

(Malachi Lui is an AnalogPlanet contributing editor, music obsessive, avid record collector, and art enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter: @MalachiLui and Instagram: @malachi__lui)