10/16/2006

My Bloody Valentine - 4 EPs and a single

(Click on the picture to download.)

For the ancient Greeks and Romans a genius was a kind of benevolent, but somewhat capricious daemon responsible for artistic or philosophical inspiration. Which means that a human being cannot be a genius, he or she can only be possessed by one. And unfortunately this daemon comes and goes at his own whim. Maybe this explains how Kevin Shields, a second-rate indie rocker, managed to come up with two of the greatest lps ever - and then completely lost it again.


All that said, I can't even begin to say how much I love Isn't Anything and
Loveless. But I never got hold of the four eps from My Bloody Valentine's heyday while they were still widely available. About a year ago, a friend hooked me up with rips he downloaded from various sources and, boy, I sure did miss something! So, thanks to my man Martin and the internet, here's Feed Me With Your Kiss, You Made Me Realise, Tremolo, Glider and the promo single Only Shallow. Bitrate varies, but nothing's under 192 kbps. This really is essential listening!

5 comments:

crybo said...

never thought for a moment that I would actually like this, but I thought I would give it a go & to my surprise I really like it. To Here Knows When kind of sounds like something Boards of Canada would do. Cheers for opening my ears.

square dancer said...

Well, I guess nobody can deny the greatness of this band at their height, n'est-ca pas? ;-) That Boards Of Canada comparison is quite interesting and quite apt. because as much as BOC are in some way a kind of dreamy, hazy post-rave electronica, MBV are sort of, well, dreamy, hazy post-rave rock. As much as they owe to early Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain, probably certain aspects of droney Krautrock etc. this way of stretching and blurring the boundaries of rock would probably not have happened without the contemporanous rave revolution. The trance-y repetitiveness, this amporphous, androgynous, oceanic sound, the whole loss-of-ego thing, it all seems definitely E'd up.

There's also another BOC parallel: both have an underlying tension and eerieness, maybe even a hidden aggressiveness that makes their sound so fascinating. There's something strange lurking beneath the beautifully ethereal surface that keeps the music from lapsing into kitsch territory.

Well, enough rambling, glad you like it. All the best and take care!

Anonymous said...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE RE-UPLOAD THIS!

square dancer said...

I will. Check back on the weekend, okay?

gabbagabbahey said...

thanks for this - I've been looking for Feed Me With Your Kiss and Tremolo for a while...

I just did my own post of You Made Me Realise - check it out if you like: http://hardcorefornerds.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-bloody-valentine-you-made-me-realise.html