Primal Scream – Vanishing Point (1997)

This album was inspired by the 1971 American road movie ‘Vanishing Point’ directed by Richard C. Sarafian and is an attempt to write an alternative soundtrack to the film. Bobby Gillespie stated “The music in the film is hippy music, so we thought, ‘Why not record some music that really reflects the mood of the film?” The resulting music is a unique new reflection of the film  – paranoid, freaky, underground, and claustrophobic.

On the surface the film is a traditional 70s road-movie with fast cars and a detached, cool anti-hero. Only, it’s more than that. Underlying is a commentary on the character of post-Vietnam America.  In 1971, the collective American mood was dark, and the hippie dream was over.  Americans were grappling the meaning of freedom and the role of the individual after the turbulence of the sixties.

The real subject manner of the film was the manner of one’s departure – maybe the only meaningful power we have as individuals.  Do we stay true to our nature or disappear into the ether of conformity?  If we betray our ideals do we simply vanish, indistinguishable from our surroundings? 

Like the film, which is blurring the lines between the real and the surreal, the music from Primal Scream’s album isn’t always what it appears to be. Individual songs lose their importance, with beats and rhymes melting and repeating, often being indistinguishable from track to track.  That’s not a criticism- the songs are paced like the fever-dream of the film’s pill-popping, speed-freak hero Kowalski. His white Dodge Challenger frantically racing across the dessert.  A ghostly enemy never far behind.  The music is atmospheric, dark, trippy, and cinematic in its scope, with Primal Scream clearly working outside the constraints of any commercial considerations. Instead of looking for hit singles, the band developed a mind-bending travelogue through dub, krautrock, electronic and psychedelia.

Primal Scream’s Vanishing Point is a huge achievement, an alternative soundtrack that actually works.  It’s as if DJ Super Soul from the film made this soundtrack himself:

“There goes the challenger being chased by the big blue meanies on wheels. The last American hero, the electric sintar, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west! 

Two nasty Nazi cars are close behind the beautiful lone driver. The police cars are getting closer-closer… Closer to our soul hero in his soul mobile. They about to strike. They gonna get him. The last beautiful free soul on this planet”.

by Shawn Ciavattone