rimal Scream had blown it. Those inspired by the vision, energy, diversity and soul of Screamadelica were rightly disappointed with its follow-up. Having kept the faith for three years they were offered a heartless Beggars Banquet imitation with a few anemic funk workouts thrown into the mix. Give Out But Don’t Give Up saw Primal Scream reveling in rock revivalism, leaving behind the possibility for further experiments and the concept of the Scream as a shifting entity of likeminded souls. Collaborator Andrew Weatherall had tried to keep pushing the envelope, offering them a barely recognisable “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” (released as “Still Fighting” on his Sabresonic debut as a third of Sabres of Paradise), but rock and roll cliché had its claws in too deep.


The period surrounding Give Out saw them wasting their time and effort on heroin and rock and roll clichés (not to mention an album they now see as desperately flawed) and the inevitable excess left them burnt out- facing the creative dead end of being a traditional rock act. They needed a collection of songs that reasserted their claim to being much more than some ordinary rock and roll band that had discovered ecstasy and the right remixers at the start of a huge cultural shift. They needed a miracle. They got Vanishing Point.


The album was hailed as a return to form by the press, eager to herald the comeback kids for a return to form and to file their glowing retrospective pieces. Seemingly revitalised by the recent acquisition of Mani (ex-Stone Roses Bass player) they eulogised Vanishing Point as an amphetamine rush of aggression, energy and ideas. What the album actually ended up being was a ploy to cover all the bases, one completely lacking coherence despite claims to the contrary (the two common stories were that the album was a) an alternate soundtrack to the movie of the same name or b) a reflection of the industrial darkness creeping over the British inner cities).


It ended up feeling like studio scraps pro-tooled together; half hatched ideas (an appalling version of “Motorhead”) and weak early evening hangover demos (“Medication” a low quality bar band rock out) and instead of the production being raw and focused it was patchy. Lacking pace and real substance, it should’ve shown the Scream still experimenting with genres and textures but also showing their strength as writers. It needed to be more focused; faster, harder, deeper, weirder and that’s where Playing God comes in.


“Burning Wheel (Chemical Brothers Mix)” (Burning Wheel b-side)

My Vanishing Point begins with a bridge between their past and the future. A nebulously vibed join-the-dots Their Satanic Majesties Request impression given a mainline big needle injection of sweaty dance floor reinvention. One of those old school hip-hop breaks chopped into a skittering beat with a low slung, heads down bass line (imagine Mani hammering at this live) propels snatches of Gillespie’s sickly comedown lyrics through and out the other side of the track. A return to their collaborative and evolutionary attitude and away from the devolution of Give Out. Now that’s what I call retro-futurism!


“Get Duffy” (LP track)

A perfect late night easy listening lounge instrumental with a great live three piece horn section providing the melody amongst a bed of shuffling programmed Casio beats. The bass clarinet solo line and keys filling in the spaces to create a perfect accompaniment to the inlay photographs of neon lit motorways.


“Rebel Dub” (Star B-side)

Gorgeously expansive dub instrumental version of the album track “Star” which flows between multiple layers of dub FX and a basic tabla, bass and horns groove instead of the regimented pop structure of the original. This relies more on the melody of Augustus Pablo’s Melodica and soul horns to create an altogether different feeling than the ham-fisted soul brother lyrics of Gillespie. This version also relieves Bobby Gillespie of the embarrassment of claiming to have made a rebel song whilst he heavily echoed the only vaguely controversial line into ambiguity.


“Kick Out the Jams” (Various Live Bootlegs)

With the addition of a possibly amphetamine fuelled Mani on stage, a whole new opportunity for live playing was opened up to the band to give it some real rock and roll. “Kick Out The Jams” had been a staple of their live sets since their eponymous LP back in 1989, but it was given a new set of teeth from the Vanishing Point tour onwards. Guitarist Andrew Innes now seemed possessed, finally having found an on stage foil more concerned with getting on with it than pulling guitar god poses and shaking their hair (see: Throb). Since I'm playing god here I'll invent a live studio recording which ends in a squall of decaying feedback and overturned drums. Havoc.


“Kowalski” (LP track)

The centrepiece of Vanishing Point- the first glimpse that the group was back in business and wanted much more than pissing about in tight leathers. A bass monster with pinpricks of chainsaw grinds and Bobby’s disembodied whispering slipping into the speakers ducking under boot stamp drums. But the track belongs to Mani and the bass. This is the only track Mani contributed to on the LP. And he does so with style, begging the question- why not more?


“Trainspotting” (LP track)

Another soundtrack influenced piece of music which, thanks to the talents of associate Andrew Weatherall, has a smoky Maxinquaye era Tricky (not as bouncy plastic or contrived as ordinary trip-hop) atmosphere to it. A Cypress Hill track photocopied too many times and bleached of bounce and wired menace. More of a lopsided rolling groove than an actual song and like much of the music on this version of Vanishing Point it’s hard to tell what the actual core members did, if anything.


“Stuka” (12" Primal Scream Meet the Two Lone Swordsmen)

The shifting patterns and odd found sounds are laid bare by a skeletal backing of electro styled subtle synths and a nasty ass bass line bringing to mind the liveliest moments of Coil and Cabaret Voltaire. This remix turns the odd dub experiment into a descent into the truly dark, the spaces in the sound allowing the cold vocoder lyrics of burned out friends, cold turkey and sin to really get a hold. Electro has always had a futuristic element to it (either sonically progressive or implied in its occasionally daft cyber speak titles) and this drags the vision of Gillespie’s lyrical millennial dystopia nearer to fruition. This is what the original LP never delivered.


“If They Move, Kill ‘Em 12” Disco Version” (If They Move Kill ‘Em b-side)

This is the version originally intended for release. At nearly 6 minutes long, the song was edited at the last minute due to an uncleared speech sample from Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. A schizoid 70’s funk blaxploitation instrumental with an inspired (drug inspired) Sitar solo. If you can have a great thing a little bit longer, why not?


“Living Dub” (Echo Dek LP track)

A dub version of “Long Life” and a revelation compared to the original (the group renamed and remixed this track). Instead of Bobby hoping you make it long enough to live a long life among the foggy oppressive backing; he’s wishing it upon you. Adrian Sherwood’s remix brings out the softer melody lines and if you listen ever so closely I swear that through headphones you can hear the echoes crackle against each other as they unfurl from ear to ear.