jehnny beth bobby gillespie

Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth releasing collab album for Third Man (stream a track)

Primal Scream‘s Bobby Gillespie and SavagesJehnny Beth are releasing a collaborative album, Utopian Ashes, which will be out July 2 via Third Man. It’s a concept album about “the loss, miscommunication and emotional inarticulacy that a married couple experience as they realize that their relationship is breaking down.” The album features Jehnny Beth’s partner, Johnny Hostile (bass), as well as Primal Scream’s Andrew Innes (guitar), Martin Duffy (piano) and Darrin Mooney (drums).

“In the same way you create characters for a novel, we’ve created characters here,” says Jehnny Beth. “But you put yourself in it, because you’re trying to understand the human situation. The singing has to be authentic. That’s all that matters.” Adds Gillespie, “When you write a song you marry the personal with the fictional and make art. I was thinking about two people living alone, together but apart, existing and suffering in a psychic malaise, who plough on because of responsibilities and commitments. It’s about the impermanence of everything — an existential fact that everyone has to face at some point in their lives.”

The first single from the album is “Remember We Were Lovers,” a lush, stonesy ballad that comes with a gorgeous black and white video directed by Bobby’s old JAMC bandmate Douglas Hart. Watch the video below.

Primal Scream feature prominently in our recent list of Creation Records’ 21 Best Records, and Bobby is a major character in new film Creation Stories about the label and its founder Alan McGee. Bobby’s also got a memoir due out later this year.

utopian-ashes

Tracklist
1. Chase It Down
2. English Town
3. Remember We Were Lovers
4. Your Heart Will Aways Be Broken
5. Stones of Silence
6. You Don’t Know What Love Is
7. Self-Crowned King of Nothingness
8. You Can Trust Me Now
9. Living A Lie
10. Sunk In Reverie