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Showing posts with label My Bloody Valentine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Bloody Valentine. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Monday, November 24, 2025
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Monday, June 25, 2018
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Top 10 albums of 2013
This list will be more controversial for what I'm leaving out. So no Bowie, National or Queens of the Stone Age:
10 My Bloody Valentine - m b v
Never thought I'd be including Kevin Shields and co in a list like this. This album succeeds by simply doing what MBV are good at. It sounds like it could have come out in 1993 as opposed to 2013, yet it's not dated.
9 Low - The Invisible Way
A remarkably consistent band. This album is more stripped down than of late for them, allowing Sparhawk and Parker's harmonies lots of room to breathe.
8 Bill Callahan - Dream River
Callahan is on fairly opaque form here, and it's an album that I suspect still has to fully reveal itself 3 months on. Still, you can't argue with that voice or his band.
7 Mark Kozelek & Jimmy Lavalle - Perils From The Sea
A brave move for Kozelek to leave his voice completely at the mercy of Lavalle's lush, electronic soundbeds. The end result is an undoubted triumph, unlike anything else in his back catalogue.
6 Chequerboard - The Unfolding
A beautiful guitar instrumental album from John Lambert aka Chequerboard.
5 Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
An unexpected return from BoC to produce an addictive soundtrack for dark, uncertain times.
4 Mogwai - Les Revenants
The soundtrack to the TV series of the year, it works beautifully with the programme. But on its own it works really well, pushing Mogwai's music in an understated, keyboard heavy direction.
3 Mark Kozelek & Desertshore
Kozelek returned to a classic guitar, bass, drums combination. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but some of the songs contained are among his strongest in many years.
2 Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood - Black Pudding
Lanegan show his more rootsy side on a collaboration that echoes his early 90s solo material in a really good way.
1 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
Nick Cave and co have had an extraordinary career, yet this album, 10 months on continues to astound, revealing hidden qualities as it goes. Wonderful stuff.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Album Review: J Mascis + The Fog - More Light
In 2000, J Mascis released what ostensibly was his first solo album but in reality followed on from his Dinosaur Jr work, which saw him progressively take over more and more responsibility for the music. The album features Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard on vocals on a few of the tracks, and also, thrillingly, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.
Despite the personnel involved, it's pretty much business as usual for Mascis, from the moment he slams into opener Sameday, which is in the vein of vintage Dinosaur Jr ie heavy riffs and Mascis charmingly half-arsed drawled vocals. Where'd You Go has an almost 70s classic rock riff at its core, while Back Before You Go and All the Girls have a kind of Lemonheads-gone-heavy feel.
The album is not without its fine mellow moments - the swirling keyboards of Waistin', the summery, acoustic picking of Ground Me To You and the blissed-out, what can only be described as 'wibblyness' of Ammaring. Later, Pollard makes his presence on the call-and-response grunge of I'm Not Fine. As for Shields? Most prominent on the title track, the final song on the album. He pours his own particular brand of magic over a complete headrush of a track, equal parts MBV and Primal Scream's Accelerator, and the tracks collapses in a sea of distortion and effects. It's a great way to round off a collection of songs well able to stand alongside Mascis' Dinosaur Jr material.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Album Review: Hope Sandoval - Bavarian Fruit Bread
In the 90s, Hope Sandoval sang in a band called Mazzy Star. Their music consisted mainly of drowsy, langurous songs with a slight tinge of country. While they had their moments (1993's So Tonight That I Might See) I was never a huge fan.
In 2001 Hope Sandoval released an album under the banner Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions. Bizarrely, it was entitled Bavarian Fruit Bread and largely featured a collaboration with Colm O'Ciosoig, ex-drummer with the wonderful My Bloody Valentine. There's minimal percussion here though. The sound of the album, while not a major departure for Sandoval, was a lot more stripped back than Mazzy Star, featuring a lot more acoustic guitar and touches of cello, bells, harmonica and xylophone here and there. Hope sounds totally unenthused, but in an utterly bewitching way.
The album begins with Drop, a Jesus and Mary Chain cover (she used to go out with William Reid) and Hope's voice is centre stage over a strummed acoustic guitar. It's followed up by the narcoleptic Suzanne. This and Butterfly Mornings are perfect sunny Sunday morning music. On the Low picks up the pace a bit and reminds me slightly of less cringe-y Serge Gainsbourg (without the male vocals). Feeling of Gaze doesn't quite work. Hope's singing is great but the cello and piano competes rather than complements leaving the track sounding disjointed.
The stronger melodies are actually backweighted towards the second half of the album. Charlotte is another sleepily graceful track, while Clear Day is a quiet triumph. The vocals here are particularly enticing, lines like "gonna take all your troubles, gonna send them away"wouldn't work with other singers but they suit perfectly here. Around My Smile is probably the strongest track, a slow-burning torch song with Hope Sandoval at her most alluring. The chorus is like a ridiculous come-on, the line is "I got going on". Writing about it doesn't do it justice. The final track is an extended shoe-gazey type piece, Lose Me On The Way.
Avoid this album at all costs if you prefer rockier stuff or like your music to actually go anywhere. It seems like she has returned to music after 8 years. She is set to release Through The Devil Softly in September 2009.
In 2001 Hope Sandoval released an album under the banner Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions. Bizarrely, it was entitled Bavarian Fruit Bread and largely featured a collaboration with Colm O'Ciosoig, ex-drummer with the wonderful My Bloody Valentine. There's minimal percussion here though. The sound of the album, while not a major departure for Sandoval, was a lot more stripped back than Mazzy Star, featuring a lot more acoustic guitar and touches of cello, bells, harmonica and xylophone here and there. Hope sounds totally unenthused, but in an utterly bewitching way.
The album begins with Drop, a Jesus and Mary Chain cover (she used to go out with William Reid) and Hope's voice is centre stage over a strummed acoustic guitar. It's followed up by the narcoleptic Suzanne. This and Butterfly Mornings are perfect sunny Sunday morning music. On the Low picks up the pace a bit and reminds me slightly of less cringe-y Serge Gainsbourg (without the male vocals). Feeling of Gaze doesn't quite work. Hope's singing is great but the cello and piano competes rather than complements leaving the track sounding disjointed.
The stronger melodies are actually backweighted towards the second half of the album. Charlotte is another sleepily graceful track, while Clear Day is a quiet triumph. The vocals here are particularly enticing, lines like "gonna take all your troubles, gonna send them away"wouldn't work with other singers but they suit perfectly here. Around My Smile is probably the strongest track, a slow-burning torch song with Hope Sandoval at her most alluring. The chorus is like a ridiculous come-on, the line is "I got going on". Writing about it doesn't do it justice. The final track is an extended shoe-gazey type piece, Lose Me On The Way.
Avoid this album at all costs if you prefer rockier stuff or like your music to actually go anywhere. It seems like she has returned to music after 8 years. She is set to release Through The Devil Softly in September 2009.
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