Announcements are percolating through the metaverse that positively seminal po-mo alternative rockers My Bloody Valentine are not only returning to the live concert stage, but in the process or recording a new album!
Kevin Shields, quoted in the January 2007 edition of NME stated: “I do feel that I will make another great record. We are 100 per cent going to make another My Bloody Valentine record unless we die or something.” Well don’t all artist hope and believe that, but how many do? To put this in context, MBV’s last record “Loveless” was released in 1991. The album took over two years to complete, and cost well over $100,000.00, bankrupting the band’s label. The next we heard from them was Kevin Shield’s original contributions to Sofia Coppolla’s “Lost In Translation” soundtrack.
For those of us who were permanently transformed/ruined by our first listen to Loveless, fifteen years is a long time to hold your breath. I have found the strangest things to tide me over in the meantime: live MBV concerts in PAL format that I bought on the streets of Chile. I staked out an indie concert in LA a few years ago listing Kevin Shields as the headliner only to discover that it was the name of a band that made noise-core in tribute to their heroes. I repeatedly cite them in interviews as a fundamental influence in all of my musical output, not so much in an auditory sense as in one that is philosophic. The other day, when LA’s Indie 103.1 radio played “Only Shallow” I nearly crashed my car. Despite the fact that people invoke the holy name of MBV as an influence the way film students cite Tarkovsky, catching direct glimpses of the band in the popular market is not unlike spotting Bigfoot in Yellowstone.
But now that is changing. My Bloody Valentine is set to headline the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in upstate New York the week of September 20th. The event will be “curated” by Kevin Shields himself, which means the lineup will astound and amaze and likely irrevocably transform a small legion of young listeners and aspiring indie music mavericks spawning a new generation of John Cage-minded experiments. According to The Daily Swarm the band’s long-time booking agent Frank Riley has confirmed that after a brief European tour, the reformed group will launch a U.S. tour, stopping at 6-8 cities.
In NME Shields went on to say “I’d feel really bad if I didn’t make another record. Like, ‘Shit, people only got the first two chapters, but the last bit is the best bit’.” Lord knows the indie world, the music world, needs an injection – despite the massive upsurge of indie output and its availability, the music is reflecting back on itself in a weird self-parodizing manner that threatens to gentrify the very definition of creative freedom into a certified and predictable genre in the manner that befell the term “Alternative.”
So, welcome back Kevin shields, and My Bloody Valentine, I hope you fuck shit up and good.
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