Primitive Ignorant interview – “The less you know, the more you can do”

Take your seats in the Psychic Cinema…

To adapt an old saying, you can take the boy out of punk – but you can’t take the punk out of the boy.

Symren Gharial may be about to drop an almost purely electronic record as Primitive Ignorant – his second album album, Psychic Cinema – but in his mind the punk spirit remains just as strong in these ten songs as his previous work with guitar bands The Eighties Matchbox B-line Distaster and Piano Wire.

Speaking to us from his relatively new home on the outskirts of Manchester, Sym reaches the conclusion that this music is as punk as anything he’s done via a conversation about the mighty Iggy Pop, to whom he pays tribute on the album.

“I love the simplicity of his music,” he tells us, “and I think that’s – even though it seems quite complex, the structures are quite complex – but actually what I’m doing is quite simple.  It’s still quite punk, because I’m not a master of any kind of instrument or a master singer or anything.

“In lots of ways, the restriction of the tools that I have has worked in my favour. It’s allowed me to build something more interesting counter intuitively because it’s given me some kind of freedom.  The less you know, the more you can do.  It’s always been that punk ethic for me.”

He’s also listed one of the many influences on the album as the The Clash’s sprawling epic masterpiece Sandinista, which saw the band move on from pure punk rock to take in pure dub reggae and hip-hop influences, among others.

“That’s just a great, great album.  They’re remembered for the big singles but when you delve deeper and really listen to that record and see how many different styles of music they were listening to… That’s always been an inspiration to make a record and not feel restricted in any way.”

Sym, after all, has more claim to such an impressive comparison than most – The Clash’s Mick Jones himself guested on his debut Primtive Ignorant album Sikh Punk. Psychic Cinema on the other hand is quite a different affair from its 2020 predecessor, certainly in terms of guest appearances. The wonderfully named Beatrice Banana provides vocals on one track and Le Junk – East London multi-instrumentalist Shimon Joseph – makes a return appearance, this time on ‘Acid Eagles’ and ‘Last In The Riot’. But mainly it’s Sym and Sym alone, working with a computer and keyboard and providing – for the first time – his own vocals.

“The first record was such a big leap from what I’d been doing before.  In many respects I was still finding my way in the electronic world.  So maybe I wasn’t as courageous and confident with electronic sounds.  So there was still a little bit of guitar and there’s quite a bit of real bass on that first record.  Whereas on this one I don’t think there’s any ‘real’ instruments on it – by which I mean, guitar or real bass on it, it’s all electronics. 

“So I guess I felt more confident in that way of working on this record.  Plus I didn’t really work with that many people on this one.  On the first record I didn’t really do any of the vocals, a) because I’m not really a singer and b) it kind of works well because I was trying to get other people to tell a story.  It sort of made sense to have all these different characters narrating this story.  It was a bit like a play, you know.”

Two people not on the ‘guest’ list did play significant roles, however, more in the back room. Colin Smith worked with him to soft through mountains of ideas and help him choose which needed jettisoning and which deserved developing. Then Ed John helped – as he did on Sikh Punk – in the closing stages, polishing and mastering the final production.

Sym says he doesn’t “sit down and think ‘oh, I’m going to write this song about this, and this song is going to represent this'”, preferring to fit things together, like a puzzle, as he goes along.  That said, the whole feeling around this album is that it should be “cinematic”. Sym’s even gone as far as creating his own cinema tickets as part of the promo for the LP.

“I tried to use inspiration not just from music,” he says, “but cinema and art and also I think experience.”

As experiences go, Psychic Cinema is definitely an intense, moody ride – one that’s definitely more David Lynch than Steven Spielberg. From its opener, ‘A Day With You’, half hulking bass tones and menacing voices, half melancholic yearning, to ‘Trash’ with its Meat Beat Manifesto-like rhythmic drive and mantra-like chrous “we’re going out like trash”, it echoes techno, industrial, hip-hop and a load of other influences to create something all of its own.

It’s dark, yes, but hopefully – as Sym says – there’s a sense of catharthic euphoria that eventually emerges out of the shadows and triumph.

“The darkness in the songs – and I think they are quite dark – comes from having a dark past and upbringing.  I try to feed that darkness through the characters, that materialises on its own quite naturally. But I feel it’s really important overall to have a record that is hopeful.  Part of relaying dark experiences, or creating dark images in people’s minds, is that it’s like an exorcism.”

Ben Willmott

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Photos courtesy of Steve Gullick