My Bloody Valentine Are Bloody Brilliant

My Bloody Valentine.

This post is for those who don’t know much about them, or have heard Loveless, loved it and always had it as a goal to listen to more.

If you don’t know anything about them, here’s the basics.

My Bloody Valentine is an avant-garde band whose sound is male and female lead vocals buried in the mix and use of noise and weird guitar sounds. They’re probably the most popular and best shoegazing band in the world. What is shoegazing? Coldplay’s Chinese Sleep Chant from Viva La Vida is as simple as shoegaze gets. Other examples include Asobi Seksu and some of M83. Or my favourite scene in ‘Lost In Translation’ which is the taxi ride after a night out when Scarlett Johansson stares dreamily out at the passing Tokyo lights. What is playing in that scene is ‘Sometimes’ by My Bloody Valentine.

In 1991 they released ‘Loveless’, a masterpiece album that is generally regarded as one of the best albums to come out of the 90’s. Getting there wasn’t an easy task. Band genius Kevin Shields is a notorious perfectionist going to extraordinary lengths to find the right stuff for his record and recording took 2 years and a lot of money. The process of making Loveless came close to bankrupting the record label who after releasing the record dumped the band citing the stress of working with them (the label went on to make oodles of money once they discovered another band called Oasis).

After that the band stopped writing music; popular lore is that Shields after releasing such a masterpiece couldn’t find a way to top it. Kevin Shields retreated to his secret hideaway perhaps to record hours and hours of music that will remain tightly locked away until he dies, only popping up a handful of times with bands like Primal Scream, and to help with the music for the movie ‘Lost In Translation’ which is where I discovered his band. If you are like me and have heard (and loved) Loveless but didn’t know anything else about My Bloody Valentine, this post is for you. Or even if you did not like Loveless this review will hopefully point you towards correcting the error of your ways! :D

Before Loveless they released one other real album, ‘Isn’t Anything’ and a shitload of EPs, and by listening to these chronologically you can draw a very clear line of how they came from what they were to eventually the brilliance of their final opus.

I’ve gone back as far in my listening as to when Bilinda Butcher first joined the band with the Strawberry Wine EP as anything before that is just too difficult to find on the internet. On this EP Butcher’s vocals remind me a lot of Nico, in fact the band at this point in history (added with the rather spartan recording techniques used) sound a lot like a twee version of the Velvet Underground. Songs such as ‘Never Say Goodbye’ and tracks from the Ecstasy EP which follow are remarkably cheery sounding in tone, enough to get me to double take to check that I hadn’t put on Belle & Sebastian’s ‘Push Barman To Open Old Wounds’ by mistake. I expected raw white noise experimentation and acid trip sonic sound-scapes and instead I got jangly guitars and two and half minute pop songs! That is not to say the stuff sucked, it just defied my expectations of what this band would have sounded like in its early days as I suspect many of you reading this post may have as well.

More unconventionality enters on You Made Me Realise EP, the title track of which is known for its extra drawn out noise barrage at the end of their live performances which goes on for longer than most can bear. You can tell where this would be on this recorded version but it’s only for a minute or so. This is probably my favourite of the EPs, though I recommend everyone not immediately familiar with My Bloody Valentine to still start with the earlier EPs simply because ‘You Made Me Realise’ (the track) can seem initially unfriendly. However I love this EP as it’s remarkably adventurous with each song completely different from the last and the songs start to have more depth from some of the new tricks they’re discovering. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the cheery yet sinister album cover art (shown at the start of the post) is a perfect descriptor. It is capped off with the remarkably pleasant and easy to listen ‘Drive It All Over Me’ which I’ve linked to at the end of the post.

From here their sound continues its smooth evolution with the full length record ‘Isn’t Anything’ and ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss EP’ which are more experimental and are a more complicated listen, though after taking in the earlier easier to swallow EPs it’s awesome to see this talented band take on more and more avant-garde techniques which take what they’re trying to do to another level completely. This evolution continues with EPs Glider and Tremolo which are the direct precursors to Loveless (recorded as they were during the recording of the album) and sharing a song or two each largely unchanged (‘To Here Knows When’ has a different fade out). And then with Loveless you have what is the culmination of years of work and steady sonic evolution. In this context such an incredible album now appears to me to be even more remarkable.

So go listen to their old stuff, and in chronological order while you’re at it. I highly recommend it.

Discography

This Is Your Bloody Valentine EP
Geek! EP
The New Record By My Bloody Valentine EP
Sunny Sundae Smile EP

Strawberry Wine EP
Ecstasy EP

You Made Me Realise EP

Isn’t Anything
Feed Me With Your Kiss EP

Glider EP
Tremolo EP
Loveless

Drive It All Over Me (MP3) from the You Made Me Realise EP
http://www.mediafire.com/?dung4233dtv