Monday, July 26, 2010

1990: "Soon", My Bloody Valentine

Sorry for the lengthy delay between posts. Computer crapped out and it took me a minute to get my files transferred from the old desktop to the new laptop. Not that anyone is reading this anyway so disclaimers are kind of irrelevant at this point.

Figured a logical place to follow up my Madchester mini-fest was to take a closer look at the emerging Shoegaze scene, one that - while not as regionally based - was still largely a UK phenomenon. The descriptor "shoegaze" itself would later go on to be loosely ascribed to a lot of the grunge and American alternative bands who chose ostensible onstage shyness as a sort of visual aesthetic, but initially with the British groups it had a more functional purpose: these bands drenched their music in such thick, relentless washes of guitar effects that it required constant diligence on their stompboxes.

One could name all sorts of precursors to the shoegaze sound, from the Velvet Underground to their ancestors the Jesus and Mary Chain, from the wistful, opaque dream pop of the Cocteau Twins to the suffocating sheets of guitar feedback utilized by Dinosaur Jr.; but there's really only one band that deserves credit for kickstarting the shoegaze scene, and that is My Bloody Valentine. Emerging from Dublin in the mid-80s, MBV began releasing a steady stream of EPs and singles beginning in 1985. The fact that an album wasn't to be seen until late 1988 was indicative of the band's struggle to find an identity, flitting fitfully between goth, neo-psychedelia and the then-popular C86 sound before ditching original singer Dave Conroy and moving into more of a dense pop direction with 1987's Strawberry Wine EP.

Signing to major label Creation in 1988, that year's Isn't Anything full length established MBV immediately as a force to be reckoned with. Most of the bands coming out of the UK - and especially Dublin, home of U2 - were still employing either cavernous, ringing chords or jangly, punk folk acoustic strumming atop earnest lyrics of personal or political strife... Isn't Anything was the antithesis of that, a thick soup of guitar feedback and distant, ethereal vocals espousing narcotic daydreams that could barely be made out beneath the din.

The year 1990 found the band not only scene veterans by that point, but it was also the tipping point where they had far more work behind them than they had left in the tanks for the future. All in all, 1990 was a relatively quite year for My Bloody Valentine, sort of a calm before the storm in advance of their masterpiece and final album, Loveless, as well as a slew of farewell singles the following year. The Glider EP would be the only thing released by the band in 1990. "Soon" would later be ported over intact to the Loveless album, so it may seem like I'm cheating a bit including it here, but there will be plenty else to cover when we get to 1991... and, besides, it DID appear here first.

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