By Nick Ubels (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: February 20, 2013
Heavily processed and distorted guitars and indelible melodies; cyclical drumming and whispered, inscrutable lyrics; haunting male and female vocals and kaleidoscopic synthesizers; incessant basslines and gliding, pitch-shifted guitars; a head-rush of impressionistic feeling and tape delay: this is the culmination of 20-odd years of on and off work on the first My Bloody Valentine record in a generation.
The correct way to describe effect on me is almost as elusive as the album itself. After staring at the pile of adjectives assembled above for close to a week, I’m still not sure I’ve come close to capturing anything easily transferable.
Never before have I felt so surely the truth of the well-worn maxim, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” (which has been variously attributed to actor Martin Mull and alt-icon Frank Zappa) than when I attempted to write about My Bloody Valentine’s first album since 1991’s shoegazing, genre-defining magnum opus Loveless.
It’s a struggle to avoid pretentious hyperbole, but m b v is a disarmingly simple record. Is it as good as Loveless? That seems beside the point. Loveless said all that needed to be said when it was released. A follow-up seems to have been a struggle for chief song writer Kevin Shields who, crushed under the weight of a critical boon, retreated into his own life, much like Brian Wilson following the sessions for Smile, the Beach Boys’ half-finished follow-up to their groundbreaking 1966 album Pet Sounds.
The musical landscape has changed tremendously since the early 1990s, but My Bloody Valentine have crafted something here that wouldn’t have felt out of place then or now, a testament to their influence on bands as varied as Tame Impala, Japandroids, Sigur Rós, Teenage Fanclub and so on. It’s a deeply-satisfying record, one that operates by it’s own rules. It’s also affirmation of the unique gift of a My Bloody Valentine record, a third record that most doubted would ever see the light of day.
My first exposure to the band was admittedly the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s 2003 movie Lost In Translation. I was drawn to the mysterious aura evoked by the heavy, but gentle distortion that seemed to perfectly suit the twinkling lights of Tokyo on a rainy night. My feelings on the film are still decidedly mixed, but my appreciation for My Bloody Valentine has only deepened. I absorbed Loveless, the band’s sophomore record from 1991. But it wasn’t until an April night in Indio, California in 2009, during the second night of Coachella music festival that the band became even more important to me.
In the morning, festival staff were handing out earplugs, something I’ve never seen at any other show before or since. My Bloody Valentine is a band that likes to play loud. Real fucking loud. Deafeningly loud.
My brother, my father and I stood, some 100 metres back, taking in the wash of whirling guitars, looking on at the four shadowy figures with long hair staring at their feet, back-lit by purples and pinks on the white curtain behind them. I could feel the bass and distorted guitars rumble through my chest while my earplugs stayed firmly planted in my ears. We were maybe 3/4 of the way into the show when I finally removed the obstructions from my ears.
It was like a space shuttle taking off.
I scrambled to put my ear pugs back in my ears when I suddenly stopped. The band had entered a moment in which any intelligible melody had disintegrated. I didn’t recognize what they were playing. It ebbed and flowed and ascended and descended. The band continued to stare at their feet. This moment went on for nearly 15 minutes while I stood breathless. The noise built in intensity for it’s final summit, and without a word or nod or signal, the band snapped back into the familiar melody. It was one of the most electrifying moments I’ve ever experienced, hearing loss be damned.
m b v works in three movements of three tracks each. The first three act as a sort of post-script to Loveless. The rumbling, sailing guitars are back. Shields seems keenly aware of the band’s sudden reappearance here, asking “I wonder how you found now?” It’s a rediscovery of the band’s space. As good a reintroduction as could be imagined. The music cycles through the pop splendour of “Only Tomorrow” and into the ruminative and loud mid-tempo track, “Who Sees You” to end the first movement.
The second movement dials back the volume and the distorted guitars for a mostly synthesizer-driven trio. It’s a palate cleanser that serves to prepare the listener for the aural assault of the final three tracks, beginning with “In Another Way,” which propel the listener into an anarchic display of post-punk delirium that serves as counterpart to the sweetness of the preceding tracks.
This final suite is uncharted territory for the band. The drums circle in on themselves and the guitars are more aggressive and densely layered than before. There’s hints of drum and bass in the cacophonous headrush that ends, aptly with “Wonder 2”, which suggests a new way forward. These songs craft a road map for how to continue beyond Loveless’s dream pop perfectionism. While m b v may not quite reach the same exhilarating highs as its predecessor, a muted, tentative version of that same pioneering spirit remains. All told, it’s a valuable, welcome but unexpected addition to the My Bloody Valentine catalogue. It’s a record that could only be created by one band, despite how wide their influence has spread.
m b v is a piece of music that looks more inward than Loveless, gently pulling rather than exploding outwards, pushing the listener into another world. It is concerned with the self in its place in the cosmos, rather than contemplating where that place might be. The sound is that of an unstable, ever-shifting landscape that exists just beyond the fringes of memory. There’s no Terra firma, placing the listener at the mercy of only the preceding chord until a familiar motif returns and reassures. There’s a thrilling moment of uncertainty and wonder that is consistently rewarded by something recognizable as soon as it veers too far into the unknown. Layer upon layer of guitar textures reveal themselves after each listen. Even the fairly quotidian mid-album track “New You” eventually feels inextricable in context, working as it does as a necessary precursor to the aggressiveness of “In Another Way.”
As far as audience trust exercises go, My Bloody Valentine asks a lot of the listener. It is a daring gamble, but one that pays in chill-inducing dividends.
