Vanishing Point (Primal Scream album)
| Vanishing Point | ||||
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| Studio album by Primal Scream | ||||
| Released | 7 July 1997 | |||
| Genre | Ambient dub | |||
| Length | 53:31 | |||
| Label |
Creation, Reprise/Warner Bros. (U.S.) 46867 |
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| Producer | Primal Scream, Brendan Lynch, Andrew Weatherall | |||
| Primal Scream chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  |
| Entertainment Weekly | A |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| NME | 9/10 |
| Pitchfork | 8.3/10 |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Spin | 8/10 |
| The Village Voice | B+ |
Vanishing Point is the fifth studio album by Primal Scream. The album shows inspiration from dub, ambient music, dance, krautrock and other genres, as well as individual bands such as Motörhead, Can, and the Stooges. It was the first album to feature the band's new bass player Gary 'Mani' Mounfield, formerly of the Stone Roses, although Marco Nelson played bass on "Burning Wheel", "Star", "If They Move, Kill 'Em'" and "Stuka". Other guests on Vanishing Point include Augustus Pablo, Glen Matlock, and the Memphis Horns.
The album was recorded with the aid of two portable eight-track recording studios at the band's Chalk Farm rehearsal rooms, where it was also written. The entire album was written and recorded in two months and mixed an additional month. On their cover of "Motorhead," Gillespie sung the first verse through a Darth Vader mask. According to an article, much of the album came from live improvisation and, "Then later on we'd layer other sounds and loops over the top, and the vocals," Gillespie said in an interview. The track "If They Move, Kill 'Em" was originally to have included a sample from Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch (the song title is one of the earliest lines of dialogue spoken in the film), but it could not be cleared in time. The album was seen by critics as a return to form after 1994's underwhelming Give Out But Don't Give Up.
Gillespie has described the album as an anarcho-syndicalist speedfreak road-movie record. It is named after and inspired by the 1971 film Vanishing Point, especially the song "Kowalski", which is meant to be an alternative soundtrack of the movie. Lead singer Bobby Gillespie said, "The music in the film is hippy music, so we thought, 'Why not record some music that really reflects the mood of the film?' It's always been a favourite of the band, we love the air of paranoia and speed- freak righteousness. It's impossible to get hold of now, which is great! It's a pure underground film, rammed with claustrophobia."
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