UK indie cult icons Felt are reissuing their classic 1985 single “Primitive Painters,” a duet between frontman Lawrence and Cocteau Twins‘ Elizabeth Fraser, this Friday as a 10″ single. It’s part of label Cherry Red’s 45th anniversary “45s at 45” series and comes with another classic, “Penelope Tree,” on the b-side.
To celebrate, Lawrence commissioned filmmaker (and former Jesus & Mary Chain bassist) Douglas Hart to make a video for the song. Felt never made videos during their ’80s run, but Lawrence always wanted to make one for “Primitive Painters.” It features previously unseen Super-8 footage shot by Vikki B, Danny Weinstein and Sandy Fleming in the mid-’80s, featuring Felt/Primal Scream keyboardist Martin Duffy (who died in 2022) and Creation Records founder Alan McGee. You can watch that below.
Here’s what we wrote in our feature on great Elizabeth Fraser collaborations:
One of the great UK indie singles — and duets — of the mid-’80s came about through happenstance. Felt, the cult band led by the iconoclastic Lawrence, hired Robin Guthrie to produce their 1985 album Ignite the Seven Cannons, the centerpiece of which was “Primitive Painters,” with its hypnotic, cyclical riff. (You’re right, it does sound a little like Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.”) Liz Fraser came to visit Guthrie in the studio while Felt were working on the song, and he had the idea to have her sing on it. Lawrence told Uncut: “He just played her the end section. I wrote the lyrics out for her on a piece of paper, she went in, listened to it once on headphones, and then just improvised around it. It was as real as that. It was a remarkable moment. When you listen back to something like that, we knew we’d got it.” A classic was born.
