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Echo Dek -Select ReviewPrimal Scream - Echo Dek (Creation)* On U Sound Impresario Adrian Sherwood remixes eight tracks from 'Vanishing Point'. * Some 12-inch promo vinyl copies slipped into high-street stores in late September; it's now available on CD and five limited-edition seven-inches. The week before the release of 'Vanishing Point Adrian 'On-U' Sherwood ensconced him- self in the backroom of the Heavenly Jukebox, the spin- off of the legendary Social night that occupies Saturdays at London's Tummills. Accompanied by Weller producer Brendan Lynch, he previewed tracks from the Scream's then imminent new album, albeit fed through the battery of effects boxes that the duo had brought with them.
Sherwood also played heavy ragga tunes equipped with malevolent
basslines until the buckling PA emitted a single ominous drone.
The overall effect was thrilling, a danger to your hearing and, as it
turned out, the perfect hors d'oeuvre to the warped ambience of
'Vanishing Point'. Now the 'Scream have given Sherwood - who first
col- laborated with the band on the Irvine Welsh-starring 'The Big Man
And The Scream Team Meet The Barmy Army Uptown' - the whole album
to tinker with. Unfortunately, the result isn't nearly as much fun.
'Vanishing Point' was the 'Scream at their best - showing off the
fringes of their record collections and reeling off endearingly
cheesy rhetoric about Martin Luther King. 'Echo Dek' is flat in comparison: remix experiments like these might not be meant to compete
with the originals but there's no doubt which version the 'Scream
completist will play the most. 'First Name Unknown' ('Kowalski' dipped
in echo effects) is listless, while the stuttering drums of 'Last
Train' are little advance on the original 'Trainspotting'. But,
Sherwood does improve the original album's weak link - 'Dub In Vain'
puts a bomb under 'Medication' - and there are moments when he extrapolates the dub core of 'Vanishing Point' beautifully:
'Revolutionary', for example, spins 'Star' out until it glides on a
delicate blend of melodica and brass.
The last band to try this route was Massive Attack, who let the
Mad Professor strip the gloss off 'Protection' on the subsequent
'No Protection'. 'Vanishing Point' was so obviously indebted to dub
from the outset that you wonder why they went for such a traditional
remix option - as a re-working of existing songs, this is very much a
'proper' dub record in the manner of the Joe Gibbs and Keith
Hudson albums that Bobby Gillespie's been eulo- gising in
interviews. The prob- lem is, electronic music is now full of
mixing-desk hooligans who might've offered fresher perspectives. 3 out
of 5GARETH GRUNOY Originally Appeared in Select Dec, 1997. Copyright © Select. Back |
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