Utopian Ashes

GILLESPIE and BETH Echo 60s Glam Duo SINATRA and HAZLEWOOD

Posted on by JL

2 July 2021

Artists: Bobby Gillespie and Jenny Beth
Who: Frontman of Primal Scream and frontwoman of Savages

Album: UTOPIAN ASHES
Released: 2 July 2021

NME: “Rock’n’rollers singing heartbroken country duets? It sounds dystopian on
paper – but this thoughtful collaboration both surprises and delivers… On paper,
‘Utopian Ashes’ sounds like an unusual – and potentially risky – endeavour. Two of
rock’n’roll’s brightest stars (one established for decades, the other still staking a
rightful claim) teaming up to record a fictionalised pre-divorce album inspired by
classic country duets is the definition of a niche undertaking…

With ‘Utopian Ashes’, Beth and Gillespie continually harness such pain – and the
strange bravery of a couple trying desperately to keep their lives together even as
things fracture around them. It’s understated, and a quietly affecting success.”
Full review here. Score: 4/5.

Turn Up The Volume: I love Bobby, I love Jehnny and I like what they’re doing
here, but I love Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood better as their heartbreakers and tearjerkers back then – in the 60s, in the unsurpassed decade of romanticism and nostalgia – sounded/sound more authentic and more natural and Nancy & Lee had (unforgettable) hit tunes which you will not find on Utopian Ashes.

Single: Remember When We ere Lovers

Full album…

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Order info: here


Together on the cover of Rolling Stone (France)

Sixties Duo Romanticism Is Back – JEHNNY BETH And BOBBY GILLESPIE Team Up For LP And Share Single

Posted on by JL

31 March 2021

Remember Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood,
Sonny and Cher all back in the sixties, when almost all songs were about eternal
amour, but also sad heartbreaks and saying somethin’ stupid like I Love You?

Today another couple of celebrities turns up and brings that universal romanticism
back. Primal Scream‘s frontman Bobby Gillespie and Savages’ emo voice Jenny Beth already met in 2015 and started working together two years later on Utopian Ashes.
A collaborative album out July 2. Order info here.

“In the same way you create characters for a novel, we’ve created characters here.
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” says Jenny Beth about
the record’s main theme.

Gillespie – who cried himself blind now and then with Primal Scream added: “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 lead-single REMEMBER WE WERE LOVERS is pure heart and soul music.

“I wanted to put pain back into music. I wasn’t hearing a lot of it in modern rock music” explains Bobby.

Listen here to the passionate heartbreaker,
accompanied by a melancholic black and white video…

Utopian Ashes out July 2 – order info here.