Long Player: 'Screamadelica' took indie band into house

In the age of the digital download, Jeff Harford rediscovers the album ...

Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie had to be talked into making the move that would turn his band's fortunes around. At the tail end of 1989, with a self-titled second album languishing in the lower half of the charts at a time when house music ruled the clubs, it seemed few had a taste for the high-energy guitar rock the Scottish outfit was turning out.

Something had to change.

While Gillespie had no problem with the drugs that fuelled the house scene, he was less enamoured of the music.

Eventually, though, guitarist Andrew Innes' enthusiasm for the rave culture wore him down. Curious to see what would come from a club treatment of a Primal Scream track, Gillespie handed DJ Andrew Weatherall the task of remixing I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have from the recent album.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Weatherall-produced Loaded became the band's first big hit, and was soon followed by Come Together, Higher Than The Sun and Don't Fight It, Feel It which all preceded the release of best-selling album Screamadelica in September 1991.

The album, adorned by the memorable cover artwork from Creation Records' in-house artist Paul Cannell, peaked at No 8 on the UK charts but, more significantly, became the link between the dance and rock scenes that would kick open the traps for other indie bands searching for a way to animate their fans.

Screamadelica is an uplifting work, philosophically aligned to the 1960s invitation to tune in, turn on and drop out, but honest enough to acknowledge the aftermath of chemically-induced revelry.

The front end is all about the high, packed with live-for-the-moment gospel-like euphoria and multilayered trip-hopping grooves; the tail end visits the sluggish mornings after and "bad dreams and messy scenes" of coming down.

Whether you're wired or tired, Screamadelica's marriage of rock, house, psychedelia and dub can take you to a better place.