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Saturday 9 February 2013

Slowdive


I'm really enjoying the new My Bloody Valentine album- it soundtracked my commute to and from work for most of this week. The indie-dance drums of Only Tomorrow, the minimal organ and voice songs, the futuristic noise of Wonder 2, the riff attack of Nothing Is, superb all. One of the things that's struck me most is the mix, the way that some of the instruments sound so far away and some so close, that it's not got everything turned up loud for the radio sound. Loving it, it works in the car, and it empties my head on the way home from work.

After Loveless we got shoegaze, a whole slew of bands with FX pedals who were supposed to sound like MBV. None of them did really; none of them had Kevin Shields in their line up. There was some chaff among the shoegazers but there was some wheat too. Slowdive recorded some good songs and at least one very good album. Here's their namesake song.

Slowdive

I'm also loving these Mike Disfarmer photographs.


2 comments:

davyh said...

I like(d) Slowdive. Haven't given mbv a proper listen yet - must.

Echorich said...

The MBV album is very good, I think I like it better than Loveless.
For me the entire Shoegaze era was about two bands and two bands only...Slowdive and Ride. Having given up on Primal Scream and with the Mary Chain becoming duller with every release, Slowdive and Ride seemed confident and focused. Slowdive were darker, Ride were headier (is that a word?). Both got categorized as dreampop here in the States - a term which makes me gag in it's Prog sounding intimations.