My Bloody Valentine – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Front 242, Loop, My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, Sonic Youth

BACK TO BACK

A guest posting by flimflamfan

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This is a rather random post. I was sat on a train heading West to East (Central Scotland). As usual my earbuds were in – some gentle tunes to ease the journey, not that the journey is in any way arduous. Music tends to enhance most things, I find.

The LP I was listening to finished and for reasons unknown the following popped into my head like a bolt of nonsense-lightning… “If I was DJ-ing the two songs from that LP I’d play back to back would be Never Understand followed by You Trip Me Up”.

A stream of bands and associated songs popped into my head – joyful memory jolts…

Teen Age Riot v Kool Thing (Sonic Youth)
Levitate Me v Gigantic (Pixies)
Arc-Lite (Sonar) v Collision (Loop)
Headhunter v Welcome To Paradise (Front 242)

I then wondered if anyone had ever set up a club night that consisted of the DJ playing two songs back to back, from different bands, all night? I suspect my own epiphany is nothing new to music blogs, forums etc. over the years, but it kept me amused, for a time.

It was time for me to depart the train and catch my connection. My mind wandered to more mundane matters.

While waiting on the platform, bam!

Feed Me With Your Kiss v You Made Me Realise (My Bloody Valentine).

Of course! An absolute must in this situation. I was a little disappointed that it had taken me so long to think of what must be one of the most obvious of choices.

I appreciate that the songs above are old-school indie. Songs, in some respects, for nostalgia buffs, although they are as vibrant today as they ever were.

I then asked myself the question “would I go to a club night like that now if someone were to host one?” The answer? “No.” Would my younger self attend? “With bells on… indie bells, obviously”.

My younger self has fortunately danced his little legs off to all of the above songs – some might say with gay abandon? I’m intrigued to know what my next random musical thought might be.

I hope you’re now thinking of back to back songs that you dance your legs off to, or at the very least, would tap your toes lightly to.

flimflamfan

My Bloody Valentine

MY FRIENDS ELECTRIC (11)

Andrea over at Conventional Records writes his posts in Italian and I have to rely on one of those internet translation services to understand it – sometimes the translation doesn’t make perfect sense and it makes me wish I had learned to speak, read and write Italian.

For many years, Andrea was heavily involved in music in Italy either through the publication of articles and reviews or as a broadcaster on a local radio station in his home town of Lodi near Milan. Nowadays, like so many of us, his time is taken up with work and family life and so his involvement in music nowadays is mainly through listening, attending gigs and writing about it on a blog.

He’s a big fan of My Bloody Valentine and so I thought I’d introduce you properly to him through some words he composed when MBV was released last year (and my apologies to Andrea that the translation service so often makes such a mess of your fine words )

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The return of My Bloody Valentine after 22 years has been a truly meaningful test than you might be willing to get serious with the ethics of extreme Conventional Records .

The album comes out suddenly impossible, whatever you want for years and years, to know what it could be after the sounds of superhuman Loveless, one forgotten by everyone as scientifically impossible. Exits overnight and exists only on the other side of a screen, or on a display. On the website of My Bloody Valentine, on YouTube, I assume also on iTunes and Spotify, linked on blogs around the world. With its electric blue cover made of pixels. But no cardboard, no aluminum, vinyl somewhere. Well, good.

Then do nothing, Kevin Shields. I’ve waited 22 years, look again. I waited another 2 months, and then the blue pixels electrical materialized behind the window of Libraccio, as I tried in vain, for the umpteenth time, the new Johnny Marr. Label a deadly price: 24 €. No problem, here we are at the checkout. Actually helped a lot that I had to download the 100 points earned on the card HI, amounting to € 20. Great thing, and a great name, High Fidelity card. A place: 4 € 3rd album by My Bloody Valentine officially came into my life, between Loveless and Nearly God. And then, of course, inside the iPod …

Listened months after reading reviews more or less authoritative, it’s all true, they are all right. Those excited like kids and those who wonder if we really need it. The ones that everyone else by comparison disappear, and those who took 22 years seems to be patched and finished quickly. There can not be a neutral and objective way to approach this album, because it is too subjective is the relationship that each may have developed with the songs and the sound of My Bloody Valentine. Why is mainly dependent on them when it was discovered and heard, and what is the relationship that you have with the music today.

I’m right there in this album. Not looking for, do not expect more, and the sound out of the world of Loveless was part of the fondest memories of the 90s. But now that I got myself into, it seems that, subconsciously, I needed it. I do not think mbv, how it operates, will hold up over time compared with Loveless and Is Not Anything; but here and now, in 2013, it compensates its imperfections and unevenness of style with a powerful evocation of the world 20-25 years ago.

mp3 : My Bloody Valentine – She Found Now

More Friends Electric tomorrow