My Bloody Valentine - Swallow [shoegaze]

My Bloody Valentine, the pioneers of the distorted, vocally-subdued, and overall noisy shoegaze genre. The band started in Ireland in 1983. Following a 10-year hiatus starting, MBV ran a few reunion shows in 2007 and has very recently released remastered versions of their previous works.

Through all this time, MBV has only released a total of two studio albums, Isn't Anything in 1988 and Loveless in 1991 (though I guess there are a good number of EP's and mini-albums). Despite this scarcity of releases, MBV's music still seems relevant today and serves a dual role of being both a source of inspiration and a point of comparison for shoegaze acts today. Certainly that notoriety is a testament to their impact on the genre.

Anyway, being a huge shoegaze nerd, I just had to buy their remastered works. Originally I was only intending to buy the remastered Loveless, as I was pretty lukewarm to Isn't Anything. Well, that didn't really happen because I accidentally bought the remastered versions of their EP's from 1988-1991 (yeah, I don't know how that happened, maybe it was late). After listening to the double-album, I think that that was probably a great mistake to make. I still bought the remastered Loveless so look forward to another MBV entry when that comes in.

Anyway, here's something from their recently released EP's 1988-1991 album.