The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

These are selling hugely.

Top ten entries for all three?

Re: the mislabelling and the "digital transfer glitch", if the way to tell the difference is indeed the clear start to Only Shallow and the fadier-fade to Soon, then they are mislabelled. The glitch 2:46 into What You Want is also definitely there, but it's weird, not like regular clipping, almost like a fault in the tape that's just on Bilinda's vocals or something. I need to read the P4K interview again, cos Shields mentions sacrificing one instant of one track for the sake of the whole album; I dunno if it was on the original remaster or the 1/2 inch one. If he's as much of a perfectionist as he's meant to be, it's hard to fathom that this could be an avoidable mistake.

they are also at Amoeba with free shipping:

http://www.amoeba.com/buy-stuff/detail/my-bloody-valentine/isn-t-anything-cd--432535.html
http://www.amoeba.com/buy-stuff/detail/my-bloody-valentine/loveless-expanded-remastered-cd--432537.html

Hey-oh, interview about the new album:

http://thequietus.com/articles/08742-kevin-shields-interview-my-bloody-valentine-new-album

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/05/09/loveless/

Good quote from the above interview:

Much has been made in the MBV mythology of drum & bass tracks that never saw light of day... until now. "There's one drum & bass song, from that era when we were doing drum & bass music, which never came out," Shields reveals. "We were actually inventing a new sound – and this song doesn't really represent it, but – we were doing slowed down drum & bass music around 1993, 1994. But it just came to nothing, mainly because we didn't know how to do it. We didn't realise that you use just a few good samples, then it's about how you stretch them on the computer. We were trying to program it, work out every beat. We got some really good things, but the lesson we learnt was that without the element of spontaneity, without the element of chance we used to get from live playing, it doesn't work for us. Just making music on the computer isn't really what I'm into. But there's one song that survived from that period, that approach. Like slowed down drum & bass. Except, um... it's really fast."

Hey Sick Mouthy, I too noticed the errant apostrophe on the EP collection sleeve. But I think that was an aesthetic choice, as ungrammatical as it is, due to their use of lower case text; without the apostrophe it would read as 'eps'.

Yeah, I assumed so too. As a copywriter it bugs me, though!

The sleeve of Isn't Anything mixes capitalized (title) and non-capitalized (band name), so there's no real justification for the ep's thing

they are also at Amoeba with free shipping:

Sort of. They have Loveless, Isn't Anything says "currently unavailable" and the EPs don't even show up in search.

CD1, the mis-labelled 1/2 inch analogue tape remaster, is definitely more physical.

I'd actually like to hear the 1/2 analog master on a big audiophile-level system. I'm hearing a "difference" but I may be missing out.

sick - have you had a chance to listen to the CDs on a proper system yet? (all the technical pressing errors aside i'm curious how they sound)

Sort of. They have Loveless, Isn't Anything says "currently unavailable" and the EPs don't even show up in search.

that's strange, Isn't Anything has been unavailable but you can still buy Loveless for $24.98 but yes the EP's are not for sale for whatever reason.

sick - have you had a chance to listen to the CDs on a proper system yet? (all the technical pressing errors aside i'm curious how they sound)

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/05/09/wednesdays-listening-2/

Aah, but you forget the part where I have Amazon Prime. Free 2day shipping, fool.

― kelpolaris, Monday, May 7, 2012 10:40 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For some indefinite date in the future as opposed to probably within a week if you buy from Amazon.co.uk. Normally seems to be that when things are going the opposite direction across the Atlantic, from Amazon itself anyway, as opposed to marketplace. & a lot of marketplace stores are U.S. anyway when you're ordering over here.

Pretty lamentable showing for the reissues in the midweek charts – EP’s at 22, Loveless at 34, Isn’t Anything not in the Top 40 at all. This probably means that none of them will be in the final Top 40 on Sunday. So no Exile On Main Street-style second chart coming, due partly to poor promotion (does anyone know these things are out again who didn’t already know it?), partly to total lack of radio support (OK, MBV is not exactly Radio 2 friendly but I haven’t heard them being played anywhere else) and partly to reissuing them on a Bank Holiday Monday. When I went into Fopp on the Monday morning I half expected there to be a queue, but most of the people in there seemed to be going straight to the Small Faces reissues.*

*and another thing, music industry; don’t put 15 major new albums out on the same day. I doubt whether even Elton John bought them all and I’m only going to pick them up for £3 each in MVE round about this time next year.

I wouldn't call that 'lamentable', "Loveless" only made 24 the first time out.

The Bank Holiday opening affects all the albums sold 'over-the-counter', and most of the other albums do not have a 'premium' involved in the 'hard-copy' as opposed to the downloadable. (Or, do albums not get downloaded as a rule in the same way as singles do?)

So, are the Small Faces troubling the midweeks?

I hung around MVE for the Jesus and Mary Chain reissues, in vain.

A streaming chart is beginning on Monday so that may change everything. But Fopp were offering all three MBV CDs for £25 inclusive - no signs of this happening in HMV, and of course albums totally absent from supermarket racks (even Richard Hawley, #2 in the midweeks, wasn't in Sainsbury's).

No sign of the Small Faces in the midweeks.

I got mine in Whiteleys HMV for the same deal.

didn't know there were THREE versions of SOON, as per that Quietus piece.

Yeah, they missed off the Weatherall remix version, a shame as that was the first MBV record I bought, having heard it in the local recshop.

Eventually, tracked down the original and realised that was better. But, still..

ah that makes 4 then aye. but also there's 3 of the actual un-Weatherall one according to Shields.

OK, clue me:

1) 7" single
2) 12" single
3) Weatherall remix
4) LP version
5) "Analogue" version

um...

to say nothing of the cassette and minidisc versions..

or indeed the Eno remix.

The EP / single version, and the versions on the two discs of the new release, are not only different masters but different mixes, apparently.

Eno remix?

My mistake; Eno called it "the vaguest song ever" but never remixed it, as such.

Eno's favourite song ever, iirc

Mouthy, I can't help but feel saddened by your blog post. "So far I’ve not really “listened” to the new versions of Loveless." I mean, I hear digital glitches on records all the time. I once sat in on a session where the masterer was using a pencil tool to physically correct the waveform, drawing over the spikes of the glitch. I just can't really get too bent out of shape about such tiny problems.

is there an odd squeak 47 seconds into You Made Me Realise too? or have i just never heard it before?

Poxen, why's that make you sad? All I mean is that I'd been doing other things whilst they were on in the background up to that point. I played them back much louder yesterday, and, unsurprisingly, totally didn't notice the glitch in What You Want (which is totally obvious if you're listening for it in headphones).

Sometimes you want to immerse yourself in a record, especially one like Loveless, and soak in every detail and nuance and float away inside your headphones or in front of your speakers. On those occasions, glitches that are errors can totally bust you out of the zone. And really awful compression / limiting / clipping just prevent you ever being able (or wanting) to do that in the first place.

(that YMMR glitch is from the eps btw. can't remember if it's on anything else.)

WHAT makes me sad, I guess, is that the response in listening that I've read, here and elsewhere, has been more along the lines of "combing through the audio landscape" instead of engaging with the musical material. I guess it's to be expected considering how familiar this record is to you (or me or anybody). But nevertheless it's frustrating to read "boo: glitches / mislabeling" and "boo: why did it take Kevin so long" instead of "yay: Loveless".

I hope you don't take it as a criticism, I love your audiophile-style.

well the whole point of these reissues/remasters is that they are supposed to improve on the listening experience. That's why they are asking people to pay extra money for music they likely already have.

Yesterday afternoon's listen was totally YAY LOVELESS. I should've got that across better!

"Improve upon the listening experience", I suppose. But this is such a digital record, with the guitars run through MidiVerbs and recorded to DA88... Even Kevin, in the P4K interview, presents the digital remaster as both definitive and unchanged, only corrected to 0dB.

And I get it, and my "sad" is generated more out of frustration that one of my favourite bands has released three (four?) new songs in the last TWENTY YEARS, and here we are saying "well, if he's such a perfectionist, then why ___?" I'm mostly excited about the unreleased tracks

I doubt I will ever play the CD2 though

CD2, as in the mislabelled CD1?

I have to say I prefer the fuller sound on the new master from the analog tapes.

I'm buying this today! I'm excited, I'm skeptical too.

Is there much in the way of sleeve notes in the 'Loveless'/'Isn't Anything' remasters - I've only got 'EP's 88-91' for now and as already covered that's short on sleeve notes. I ask because was one of the excuses for the delay not "Kevin's still writing the sleeve notes", or had the dog basically eaten his homework?

was nothing in my loveless.

There are no sleeve notes that I've noticed thus far! Think there's an insert with the EPs that I've not looked at.

Aye, the EPs insert is just a reproduction of the original sleeves and some pictures.

Would have been nice to have some basic details about what releases the tracks were from, but aside from that I'm happy just to have all those tracks, only had the 'Tremelo EP' prior to now.

that info is on the reproductions of the back of the sleeves.

True. Nothing about the non-EP tracks though. I still think it's nicely put together.

i like seeing the art without the text. have also just noticed that the reproductions are of the 12" artwork not the cd artwork. not keen on the size though - half and inch bigger than normal cds = storage problems.

and that glitch i mentioned above is also on my original cd ep so it's not new, i just never noticed it before. does sound odd though.

I like that it's a pretty sturdy card gatefold, but the size is a little awkward.