CD CHOICE: Isn't Anything; Lovelessby My Bloody Valentine.
Tonight, in a packed venue in north London, four people will amble out of the shadows at the side of the stage, pick up their instruments and start to play in public together for the first time since 1992. It's time for My Bloody Valentine, music's most starry riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, to come blinking into the light once again.
Whatever about the band's moderate commercial success when they were together, their sound and style has had a profound influence on indie rock during their lay-off. Even today, bands with fuzzy guitars, ethereal vocals and incandescent sonic cathedrals of sound (so to speak) are still showing MBV some love.
To coincide with the return of Kevin Shields, Colm O'Ciosoig, Belinda Butcher and Debbie Googe, which includes a date at this summer's Electric Picnic, MBV'S two full-length studio albums, Isn't Anything(1988) and the peerless, flawless Loveless (1991), have been remastered and reissued.
Isn't Anythingremains the sound of a first draft. The dream-pop structures, lush vocals, snowdrift guitars and cloudy drones are present throughout, but influences are still on show and you get a strong sense of adjustments to be made in the future.
Even now, Lovelessleaves you breathless. There's a dynamic and a momentum to the album that has never been recaptured since. Those dizzy guitars, white noise melodies and ethereal harmonies may be easy to replicate, but no one else has taken the same steps as Shields to craft such radically charged and pitched symphonies. They were the sounds he heard in his head, and if it took months or years to get them on tape, so be it. After all, no one said making perfect music would be easy. www.myspace.com/mybloody valentine
Download tracks: (When You Wake) You're Still in a Dream, Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)from Isn't Anything; Soon, Only Shallow, When You Sleepfrom Loveless
