The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

I have always loved MBV but streamed the ep's for sixty seconds, felt decrepit and had to shut them off??? OTOH I can listen to some 50s jazz and feel daisy fresh. I think it's geriatric millennial cooties.

sixty seconds of each song, 15 seconds of each EP, or 3.5 seconds of each song and then skipping to the next?

do I have to buy any of this shit again if I already have the CDs from the last go around?

what’s the german word for the relief you feel upon seeing “sold out” on the 20th version of loveless you’ve been spared to have to get

? All versions are currently showing as in stock.

xp
i believe the german word is linderung

I got carried away (thanks to anagram) and pre-ordered but I'll probably sell the vinyl on when it finally arrives in October. The hi-res files however are worthwhile if obviously not essential.

Oh whoa they're actually selling to the US now!!

Ordered, though for some reason there doesn't seem to be any download for Isn't Anything.

...also the downloads instantly fail when i try to start them, womp womp

the mp3s do... not the other formats

Every format for me. Never had this happen with a label/artist shop using the Bleep backend before, but I could see server load being a problem, or maybe a new version of the files being migrated? It's not like I haven't heard these before; I'm just happy I could finally get the older albums on vinyl

i had it happen with that large batch of autechre live shows. after a month they refunded me.

Has anyone on ILM heard both versions of the mbv vinyl (the original pressing from 2013 and the new pressing)? Somebody on another forum said the new pressing sounds less murky than the original, which I’ve always thought sounded muddy and muted. I don’t want to shell out for the new one, though, if it was made from the same master. The details have been vague on the Domino site.

I too am looking for details on this, as well as the differences between the new standard and deluxe editions. I checked over at the Hoffman forums and lasted all of three minutes. I'm assuming the information is there but I really can't be bothered to spend an afternoon reading about DRM numbers and shipping notifications so hopefully ILM can help

i have both the original and the new one sitting right here waiting for me to compare them. I'll do it now.

super quick check on the first track didn't sound appreciably different to me.

(and I mainly bought it because the sleeve on the original is so fucking flimsy. new sleeve is better, but still not the thick booklike sleeves the last round of reissues came in unfortunately. I assume Loveless and IA are similar0

thanks akm!

Anyone grab both versions of Loveless and Isn't Anything?

I'll check this again on my other stereo later today or tomorrow, it's more sensitive to things like this (I just listened on an AT-120 with some cheap powered studio monitors). It is hard to a/b when you dont have two turntables running through a mixer.

Thank you!

Pretty good interview, learned some stuff and details I'd not heard before

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/27/my-bloody-valentine-kevin-shields-band-killing-songs

Shields has a habit of making it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world one minute – bands are loud, he shrugs, but most gigs are “laughably quiet … something you’re consuming, not being consumed by” – then admitting that My Bloody Valentine reached a point where they were playing at such volume that they were causing structural damage to venues. “Chunks were falling out of the ceiling. It sounds like an exaggeration, but I’m serious – we were really concerned that eventually some roof was going to fall down,” he says. “It was a matter of time before a serious accident happened.”

Not everyone was impressed. There is a bootleg recording circulating among fans of a late 80s London gig degenerating into chaos – the sound man has given up and fled the building. Shields says that was one of the less extreme reactions. “At one gig, a butcher was literally chasing my sister with a cleaver – he wanted to chop the cable because it was shaking his shop so much when we were doing You Made Me Realise. The police turned up and arrested our tour manager during You Made Me Realise. They arrested him, put him in the car, questioned him and let him go and when he got back we were still playing it. Countless, countless situations.”

:D

that article is interesting but weirdly skips over, completely, MBV (the album) and says there has been nothing new from the band since the 90s

Not quite!

With the switch apparently more off than on, the band quietly split up. Shields eventually gave up, too, joining Primal Scream and dabbling in remixes and film soundtracks. My Bloody Valentine eventually reformed for a succession of live shows in 2008, which prompted him to return to Loveless’s unfinished follow-up; m b v was eventually released, virtually without warning, five years later.

That manager-getting-arrested story is golden.

This bit stuck out to me:

“Basically, I know when the switch is on or off. When the switch is on, everything’s fine, everything’s good, and when the switch is off, everything’s pointless. I would go: OK, I’m not trying, I’ll watch television, I’ll read magazines. That’s why Loveless became this seemingly long, drawn-out process, because I discovered pretty quickly that when circumstances around me turn the switch off, I just feel like it’s a labour, or I feel too much emotional and psychological uncomfortableness around me to be doing music in a way that’s pure, the way everyone should be doing music.”

It kinda just sounds like untreated depression to me. On the other hand, it's weirdly heartening because I think I have the same (lack of) work ethic, and if this guy could make Loveless then maybe I can make something 1/100th as cool one day.

Seeing that interview pop up on my feed last night was great.
Always good to hear from the recluse.

Side note: any time I think of MBV, I can't help but think of Tim Smith (Cardiacs; R.I.P.), as well. The irony of the situation gets me every time.

oooh my non-deluxe loveless arrived today

.... yes i have also ordered a deluxe copy of loveless

i probably said that upthread but the irresponsibility of the decision has not lost its novelty

GREAT recent Double J radio interview:
https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/programs/curated/kevin-shields-mbv-interview/13293944
Well worth the time for fans with lots of great anecdotes.

This interview has the most detailed discussion of his influences I've ever heard.

Yeah that's really good. Hearing S*n* in that context is like, well of course! Trying not to spoil there.

Yeah, there's a lot of things I want to quote from it, but holding back for everyone because it's the deepest Shields interview I've ever heard and the interviewer seems to have no agenda beyond wanting to learn more about his influences and process.

Will give an ear when I can!

The bit near the end of the interview where Shields talks about having him and Belinda only track vocals on Loveless without being heard by the engineers/only monitored via VU meters, as if to create similar quantum conditions to that of an unobserved photon in a double-slit experiment (and then claiming that it led to many takes being uncannily lined up in sync upon playback), is so very Shoeperstitiousssssss

Hahah the Jim Reid story. Great interview indeed.

So it turns out that was the edited version? There's a 3 1/2 hour cut!

https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/radio/doublej/audio/202104/dkl-2021-04-08-kevin-shields.mp3

I will rely on others here to report any further revelations. I loved the interview - it always helps to have an interviewer who isn't obnoxious and who knows what they are talking about - but it was tough enough finding 90 minutes to sit and listen, let alone 3 1/2 hours!

You can walk and stand and drive and passenge and shop and iron and exercise and clean and paint and build model train sets instead

You made me summarize

near the end, he talked a lot about what he was up to during the 22 years after loveless. the short version was, he spent a lot of that time on a spiritual journey, starting with doing what he referred to as "the dumb drugs", "party drugs", and eventually ending with transcendental meditation. he seems relatively happy now, or at least content.

he also said, (and maybe this part of it isn't news, i don't know) that they're working on 2 albums (one of which is a double-album?) and 2 EPs, and one of the albums (not the double-album) is coming really soon. he seems really excited about that one. they're still working on the other stuff.

oh, sorry paul ponzi, i thought you were referring to the 90 minute interview, which i just finished listening to. 3.5 hours is too much for me too, ha!

someone out there, please take the kevin shields challenge

I'm going to listen in my sleep to the remastered deluxe version of this interview and will report any hypnagogic reveries thus triggered if I can remember them.

Had he talked about the very heavy concept behind the mbv album much before?

Those general revelatory/apocalyptic themes Shields was claiming went into m b v seemed to potentially tie into an end-of-Mayan-calendar/Dec 2012 timeline, so at least he was only a month or so late on that thematic deadline

xpost To my knowledge he had not.

honest to god there's times i almost want to challops and say this is their best album but probably just because it's new

― downton arby (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, February 4, 2013 3:28 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

eight years later it is no longer new and I think I agree it is their best album

One day we will wake up in the morning and there will be a new MBV record.

Another reason to stay alive

I totally forget I pre-ordered the Isn't Anything and Loveless vinyl