Primal Scream have always been a bit of an oddity when it comes to classification. The Scottish-based group are often touted as a rock band, but after decades of dabbling in genres ranging from indie pop to acid house, the band is still arguably most famous for their 1991 album Screamadelica – a fusion of electronica and psychedelic rock that helped to redefine both genres in its wake and inspired artists from Daft Punk to Lorde. Black Science Orchestra and their progenitor DJ Ashely Beedle, on the other hand, are distinctly known for their presence in the ’90s British EDM scene that influenced Primal Scream’s landmark LP. Primal Scream’s original version of “Love Insurrection,” released this past July in advance of their upcoming album Come Ahead (which is itself humorously named after a Glasgow expression used when inciting somebody to fight), was a funky, ’70s influenced rock portmanteau reflective of their melting-pot musical tendencies. BSO’s new take on that already stellar track funnels the whole affair straight down the pipe of the classic electronica that helped popularize both in groups in the first place.
This take on “Love Insurrection,” while fully christened with the mouthful moniker of “Black Science Orchestra Vocal Remix,” does much more than just alter Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie’s sonorously nasal crooning. It elongates its source track by splicing up its various elements, methodically staggering them piece by piece as it builds in both intensity and familiarity. Commencing with a soulful orchestral backing and gospel-style vocals, it adds by degrees a bouncing, dancefloor-ready beat and funkily choppy guitar line. Supplemented by an insistent bongo groove, a subby bassline, and some quintessentially House-y piano and synth punches, the sum total sounds stunningly similar to something right off Screamadelica. It’s new Scream by way of old Scream a la “Moving On Up,” courtesy of some of the EDM maestros that were on the forefront of crafting the very essence of the music that’s being recalled.
While the original “Love Insurrection” was in and of itself a trippy, funky feather in Primal Scream’s cap, Black Science Orchestra’s take is a welcome, nostalgic trip back to the sounds that brought both artists to the fore. More than that, it’s also proof that regardless of disparities in time or genre, there’s something irresistible at the core of Primal Scream’s sound that is immediately and distinctly theirs from iteration to iteration. Ripped from its housing and paired with BSO’s classic brand of electronica, that something sounds just as fresh as it did when Screamadelica first broke the former band into the mainstream, reborn for the “Manichean Times” the song decries.