Kevin Shields bringing back MBV!

[nomadologist]

for feedbacking guitar i'd rather listen to psychocandy, anyday. i just realized that i'd like loveless more if it would just go ahead and be ambient. but it isn't. it isn't quite anything it's trying to be, which makes it interesting, but not always pleasant (for me.)

 

[tate]

someone mentioned dinosaur jnr, and in the oceanic scheme of things i think they knew how to use feedback in a fairly vicious oceanic way.

really? what album are you thinking of? or do you mean live? Not disagreeing with you, just curious. Mascis always seemed to be much more about the rock guitar solo thing (which I never cared for, found objectionable tbh) than the oceanic feedback noise trip (which I prefer), though I admit to not being terribly familiar with Dinosaur Jr prior to 1989 or thereabouts. He leaned pretty heavily on the pentatonic scale and whammy bar, a sound that I loathed. And while his volume and solos may have faked many into believing that his guitar playing was interesting, I certainly never found it so. In fact, I would characterize much of his guitar playing from green mind onward as being utterly retrograde in comparison to loveless or others at that time (sy, ut, band of susans, catherine, etc etc). But I never saw mascis play live either. I did see the loveless tour, which was both oceanic and vicious. Just my two cents,' as I've never (a) completely understood the admiration for mascis or (b) seen d jr live. Will be more than happy to be corrected on this . . .

 

[Chris]

Haha, not even Dissensus can ruin Loveless for me...

I don't know, I think the ambiguity of it is what I find so intriguing... The lack of orientation, polarity... the music isn't really sexual or Platonic, male or female, gay or straight, it's just... purple. This does create a very disorienting feeling... but then so does the bittersweet, emotional ambiguity a lot of early breakbeat hardcore.

Does music have to be purely happy or sad; or carnal or romantic in the most obvious way though? Hardcore got ruined for me when it split off into the most simple binaries... aggressive jungle/happyhardcore... I'm not saying all music should be as confusingly down the middle as Loveless, but that's what makes the album stand out, and it wouldn't be Loveless if the forms were more clear, the vocals better, the mood less ambiguous... I can understand how it might put some people off, but I find it sublime.

I don't know about this music being passionless, passion seems to be the one stance this album makes clearly... but I'd agree that they're not exactly conveying a healthy love, which is why I used the unrequited love allusion earlier. The album is probably called Loveless for a reason. There is an almost sick or unhealthy feeling here, and it probably isn't unrelated to Shield's rumoured mental problems. Given the sickness of society, the fact that so many people are on meds, the death of the old ideal of love in a world in which nearly half of all couples get divorced, makes the sickness and confusion of the album very resonant and relevant to me. Besides, I think a trace of sadness in music is beautiful, even romantic in a way... probably why I love 80s goth and darkwave. It's absurd positivity in music that puts me off sometimes, and I'm not particularly depressed, I just find it unrealistic.

On the production values... I admire good production, but I really admire people like Shields and Ariel Pink who can create a sense of disorientation/altered conciousness via creative use of "bad" or "wrong" sounding production and vocals. I actually prefer that in music. Again, it's perfect, pitch-corrected vocals that bother me, now that really sounds sick and wrong IMO.

The last sacred cow gets filleted by Dissensus wrecking cru!

LOL... my friend recently described (probably my favorite band) the Cocteau Twins as "Enya for fucked up people..."

 

[mms]

really? what album are you thinking of? or do you mean live? Not disagreeing with you, just curious. Mascis always seemed to be much more about the rock guitar solo thing (which I never cared for, found objectionable tbh) than the oceanic feedback noise trip (which I prefer), though I admit to not being terribly familiar with Dinosaur Jr prior to 1989 or thereabouts. He leaned pretty heavily on the pentatonic scale and whammy bar, a sound that I loathed. And while his volume and solos may have faked many into believing that his guitar playing was interesting, I certainly never found it so. In fact, I would characterize much of his guitar playing from green mind onward as being utterly retrograde in comparison to loveless or others at that time (sy, ut, band of susans, catherine, etc etc). But I never saw mascis play live either. I did see the loveless tour, which was both oceanic and vicious. Just my two cents,' as I've never (a) completely understood the admiration for mascis or (b) seen d jr live. Will be more than happy to be corrected on this . . .

i saw em both on the same bill once, funnily enough.
i'm thinking about bug specifically, i'm not really into guitars solos etc and i dont see oceanic as something necessarily engulfing in a lovely way, it can be pretty stormy too, which i think that album has.
i like feedback, i think dirty is one of my favorite sonic youth records, but not really the songs, the passages of feedback on that album are more oceanic in a way for me, id rather listen to just those parts, they're like the feeling of being pulled under by a wave and not quite being in control, which is quite a strange experience, dangerously rapturous.

 

[tate]

i saw em both on the same bill once, funnily enough.
i'm thinking about bug specifically, i'm not really into guitars solos etc and i dont see oceanic as something necessarily engulfing in a lovely way, it can be pretty stormy too, which i think that album has.
i like feedback, i think dirty is one of my favorite sonic youth records, but not really the songs, the passages of feedback on that album are more oceanic in a way for me, id rather listen to just them, they're like the feeling of being pulled under by a wave and not quite being in control, which is quite a strange experience, dangerously rapturous.

Right, I see what you mean about mascis' rendering of 'storminess' through the guitar playing. And also couldn't agree with you more about dirty, it's packed to the gills with noise sections, and very sonically interesting ones at that. Saw that tour too, and the noise sections were straight-up beautiful.

 

[nomos]

this feed me with your kiss utoob vid came with an unexpected voice-over review part way though. it's overstating the case but i think gets at the point about the rock that loveless disposed of...

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... While there's a real diversity running through this album, at key points My Bloody Valentine fall into stock and trade indie cliches like buzz saw guitars and half-hearted vocals. I'm afraid Isn't Anything's magic moments never really outweigh it's tedious tendencies. A missed opportunity.

Honestly, if I'm in the mood I'll usually choose an early Swirlies album over Isn't Anything. I think they took the formula and did it better more than half the time. But I won't be drawn in by this Loveless bashing. That's blatant foolishness.

(** BOC's Gogagdiddy or whatever does literally make me quesy though. It's probably a good runner up to MHTRTC but I can't deal with it)

 

[MankyFiver]

Can? Hippy bollocks for punks.

bring that hippy to me NOW!

 

[MankyFiver]

i like it for the the tiny tiny drum roll at the very beginning before you are plunged in

bass is always overrated

and they were the loudest band ever live

makes me feel like im dying on drugs, head snapped to the side with a cock up my arse, how else do you wanna go

 

[nomadologist]

Chris, I definitely understand why people like Loveless, you all make good points. As a very young teen I was the world's biggest Cocteau Twins/This Mortal Coil/MBV/Slowdive/ALL SHOEGAZE ALL THE TIME fan. I think part of not hearing Loveless the same way anymore (I used to totally agree with what y'all are saying about it and thought it was really sexy and whatnot) is my own fault. I think I killed it for myself by playing it out because so many of my friends were guitar-music only types and of all the things we liked, we could only really find common ground in dream pop. I appreciate guitars used texturally instead of narratively. I think there's something about digital signals that make shoegaze in all its excessively trebled out glory sound BAD, where on cassette it made more sense. Cassette warmth and fuzz is a better match for that much treble, it softens the edges and makes it murkier (I happen to like murk.)

I guess shoegaze does make more sense when you're in like single and self-indulgent mode where it's fun to squeeze depth out of one-night stands and overanalyzing phone calls and shit. Loveless seems more about that feeling you have after good sex with a cool person who you have no real connection with but amuse yourself by creating drama and wearing rose-colored glasses (and headphones) when you remember encounters, all the while knowing you'll be over it in six months. Beats actually listening to your classmates argue in that Metaphysics and Epistemology seminar. I'm really not hearing the druggy thing, except maybe an obvious stoner vibe. Heroin addicts don't care about having sex, or at least, they don't feel even a tinge of any sort of bodily erotic sensation or arousal. Thrill Kill Kult are more like junkie romance music.

Anyway, I like trying to abandon the common line sometimes when thinking about the more obvious "concept" an album is working from, just for kicks. I don't get it when people take music arguments personally. For me, hearing people rag on shit I like actually intensifies my love of it, or at least gives my feelings a reason to surface. I mean, if everyone were honest, wouldn't we all admit we like some things expecting others to hate it? Anyone as music obsessed as freaks like us who come to dissensus obviously started out that way with music. I do notice a difference between people who /makeplay music and people who don't when it comes to their criteria and fervor. A lot of musicians couldn't be bothered to argue matters of music taste and have no patience for it. My boyfriend reads this and chuckles to himself then goes back to the drum machine...

PS after watching that video nomos put up i'm going to have to say they seem pretty grungey there, surprisingly sonic youthy, and i'm going to file MBV under "bands whose concepts are more interesting than their execution" in a new drawer labelled "slowgrungegazecore" and cross-referenced with "bands whose producers ruined their sound"

 

[shudder]

two of the most important things to have if you want to signify "carnal" sonically, imo, are 1) bass,
[...]
PS dHarry, I never said it didn't have "well-defined sonics or dynamics". I said it didn't have a full frequency range--i.e. a full, rich range of frequencies filling out the atmosphere from the very lowest bass to the highest treble. when you write completely in the midrange-midtreble ranges, use a bunch of hissy natural distortion on top of way too many effects pedals, and don't have any roundness to your lower midrange, let alone your basstones, you end up sounding depthless and, imo, awful.

Very much disagree. There is a LOT of bass on this record. Just listen to a song like "To Here Knows When". In fact, check out this spectrum of the song:

 

[nomadologist]

whoa whoa. what kind of EQ are you working with? where did you get this? unless it's graphed from the original master, or an original remaster, there are a lot of things that could be boosting the bass beyond the original or whatever version i have/had.

anyway, even if this is a very precisely accurate representation of the amount of basson that song-- 1) it's not *all* that much 2) is it notes being played as such or just like one sustained note run through an echo or delay effect until it becomes a mass of distortion? to my ears, the bass in that song is just a wall of sound-type monolith of reverb and drone. 3) the bass that's there if i remember is too rough around the edges, no space, all on one plane up in the foreground, and 4) in its abundance STILL can't balance out that cloying treble, which renders it pretty worthless in negating my sonic problem with MBV.

all of this talk might actually make me listen to this album out of curiosity. damn you people...now let's see how long everyone else in the room here will let me play it before they start throwing bottles at my head

 

[Guybrush]

I definitely think part of the disagreement over this record comes from people having experienced the band or the record in vastly different periods and contexts. I heard them for the first time in 2004, for example, and I am sure this affects my perception of the record quite a lot (I thought it sounded ultra-modern at that time, btw, so I don’t agree with the ‘dated’ sentiments). I think it is an excellent record with something to discover for everyone, but perhaps you need to discover it at the right time for it to unveil.

For me, hearing people rag on shit I like actually intensifies my love of it, or at least gives my feelings a reason to surface. I mean, if everyone were honest, wouldn't we all admit we like some things expecting others to hate it? Anyone as music obsessed as freaks like us who come to dissensus obviously started out that way with music.

People critisizing what I play mostly does not affect the way I feel about a certain song, but I do think words (both written and spoken) have the power to change the way I think about something. Hmm, come to think about it, I think I’m with you on the criticising thing actually bolstering my liking for a song. The natural question, then, is what actions does the opposite? I would probably say people I dislike liking the song (which feels like them desecrating the song).

 

[nomadologist]

k there's more modulation on loveless than i remembered. hate the epic guitar breakdown on this first song and the drum fill is kinda cheesy and thin-sounding. might sound better on headphones...

 

[shudder]

whoa whoa. what kind of EQ are you working with? where did you get this? unless it's graphed from the original master, or an original remaster, there are a lot of things that could be boosting the bass beyond the original or whatever version i have/had.

straight from CD, no EQ or any amplification (i.e. CD --> AIFF file (same data) --> spectrum program)

anyway, even if this is a very precisely accurate representation of the amount of basson that song-- 1) it's not *all* that much 2) is it notes being played as such or just like one sustained note run through an echo or delay effect until it becomes a mass of distortion? to my ears, the bass in that song is just a wall of sound-type monolith of reverb and drone. 3) the bass that's there if i remember is too rough around the edges, no space, all on one plane up in the foreground, and 4) in its abundance STILL can't balance out that cloying treble, which renders it pretty worthless in negating my sonic problem with MBV.

It's right in the middle of the song, so it's mostly a texturey section. The sound producing the bass isn't so much a bass but a mass of reverb and distortion, you're right. In your criteria for carnality, did you mean bass as in the instrument (and synthesized replacements of it), or just low frequencies? I took you to mean the latter...

all of this talk might actually make me listen to this album out of curiosity. damn you people...now let's see how long everyone else in the room here will let me play it before they start throwing bottles at my head

hehe

 

[nomadologist]

guybrush--talking to other people who trash your music is especially great when those people are very intelligent. i know a lot of people think analyzing personal taste ruins some sort of "magic"...for me it reinforces how great something is, as long as you let yourself change your mind and really listen to the opposition. the only way to grow aesthetically is to understand limitations, and remain willing to ditch your personal aesthetic preferences when they get cumbersome or boring. or just on a whim.

here's the thing, shudder--i usually love tinny, harsh, metallic, top-heavy, ear-splittingly midrangey tones bathed in distortion. you're talking to someone who from 4AD straight to Joy Division (I'm one of those people who actually likes Hannett's production and hates live JD) as a 13-year-old who desperately tried to repress any minor goth tendencies, enduring ridicule from all manner of Pavement fans, but who was finally vindicated when factory's back catalogue was frantically plundered by hipsters and indie kids around Y2k.

i'll admit loveless is not as bad as the cartoonish parody i'd falsified in my mind's ear to be contrary, but we only made it 4 songs in before bf said "enough" and ripped it out...i could make fun of him for replacing it with that john cale "paris" solo album but i'm enjoying it somehow...heheh...

(is there a guilty pleasures thread? we should start a thread where we rip on things in the most baroque vitriol we can muster, with no manners, deference, or restraint. maybe even things we like. not a haters thread--that's too predictable--but more like primal scream therapy. maybe i'm the only one here who would derive pleasure from this.)

PS I meant full, round bass tones that serve some harmonic purpose if not a rhythmic one. i like resonance. can't stand like super vacuous ring modulation n phaser on tv static sounds type bonedry atmosphere in my ethereal drugnap soundtracks

 

[shudder]

all that makes sense, nomadologist. I love Hannett's production too, and have never listened much to the live is better camp. I'm happy it's at least better than your mind's ear parody! And given that's what you mean by bass, then loveless certainly doesn't have that in spades.

 

[Chris]

The natural question, then, is what actions does the opposite? I would probably say people I dislike liking the song (which feels like them desecrating the song).

Definitely, it seems like when a certain element gets into something I like, I just can't keep my enthusiasm for it anymore... Elitist I know, but I can't seem to separate art from it's cultural/political/lifestyle/idealogical associations, nor do I want to.

...But I love a heated music debate, quite thrilling. Helps me understand why I feel the way I do, and helps me recognize my blind spots if that's the case (uncommon, but possible ). I almost prefer sometimes that the more intelligent people of this board who's opinions I respect take the other side of an issue, just for the sake of challenging my preconceptions and keeping me fresh... even if I'm prone to agree with them usually.

(is there a guilty pleasures thread? we should start a thread where we rip on things in the most baroque vitriol we can muster, with no manners, deference, or restraint. maybe even things we like. not a haters thread--that's too predictable--but more like primal scream therapy. maybe i'm the only one here who would derive pleasure from this.)

I was actually thinking the same thing reading this thread. There is always David Stubbs' Mr Agreeable site when you're in the mood for some delightfully cathartic, critical blasphemy... * link * ... I'm sure this is nothing new to anyone here though...

 

[swears]

I was actually thinking the same thing reading this thread. There is always David Stubbs' Mr Agreeable sight when you're in the mood for some delightfully cathartic, critical blasphemy... * link * ... I'm sure this is nothing new to anyone here though...

Haha...this is fantastic: http://www.mr-agreeable.net/stubbs/default.asp?nc=956&id=78

 

[nomadologist]

ha, i was just going to post that I'd never heard of Mr. Agreeable, and that from what i'd read he's nowhere near as critical as i was envisioning our thread. then swears pointed out the stone roses one and it's pretty amazing.

still, I thinksome of us in here could do much better. he's much more level-headed and too obvious at times. i'll write something particularly vicious tomorrow to usher in my work day.

 

[dHarry]

someone mentioned dinosaur jnr, and in the oceanic scheme of things i think they knew how to use feedback in a fairly vicious oceanic way.

really? what album are you thinking of? or do you mean live? Not disagreeing with you, just curious. Mascis always seemed to be much more about the rock guitar solo thing (which I never cared for, found objectionable tbh) than the oceanic feedback noise trip (which I prefer)

Dinosaur Jr gradually devolved into straight heavy rock post- or even mid-Bug, but previous LP You're Living All Over Me really does that [dazed melodic vocal + wall of distortion + hardcore/metal dynamics] thing beautifully in an integrated psychedelic way, opening track Little Fury Things especially. I think it was possibly a big influence on MBV's evolution from sub-Mary Chain fuzz-pop (which was nice too ;-) to the fearsome beast of You Made Me Realise and Feed Me With Your Kiss.

Live around then Dinosaur Jr were a trip; I saw them soundcheck once, the first outrageous blast of mangled noise turned out to be Lou Barlow solo on bass, blasting distorted chords out of a huge stack of speakers - they all wore earplugs!

Another lesser-known influence on MBV's quantum leap was Public Enemy's Yo! Bum Rush The Show - the influence of those grinding metallic sounds and hard breakbeats can be heard on Isn't Anything's gear-changing guitar technique, not to mention more explicitly on the limited edition single track (track A?) which consists of a PE beat with feedback/tuned fog clouds drifting in and out.

Nomadologist - to suggest that Loveless' songs could be improved with better singers and production seems facile and/or ludicrously wide of the mark to me - a bit like saying that if could only smooth out his paint a bit Van Gogh might have got somewhere, or that James Joyce really couldn't tell a good story and needed a good editor. Obviously I'm not saying everyone must like them (or Van Gogh and Joyce for that matter), but I would have thought that anyone could see the development of an aesthetic from Ecstacy and Wine through to Loveless, a unique investigation of sonic, dynamic and emotional possibilities.

[edit - I wrote this before checking yr subsequent posts where you relent, a little, after re-listening!]

There's an oceanic thing for sure but also an intensity of physicality, the blurred edges and dissolution of form forcing you to get inside the music and feel your way around in the fog/thicket, opening your senses to the dynamic surges and grain of the sound (even if it makes you sick!).

The first time I heard Isn't Anything I thought that finally rock/pop music had found an equivalent to emotion - not as in "I feel good/bad/whatever", but an analogue for the way emotion isn't just a subjective attribute of the ego but an embodied hormonal/nervous/circulatory/epidermal interaction that reacts with the psyche and other psyches and bodies in mysterious ways. Fuzz-tone like an unbearable nerve-burning caress, rock dynamics like an unexpected surge of blood or pulmonary constriction. And no, I hadn't read Deleuze & Guattari, Lyotard, Reynolds etc. at the time; I found my brother's cassette copy around '88/'89 and had only read about MBV as derivative sub-Mary Chain copyists hitherto!

It seemed like a quantum leap; if the Cocteau Twins were pop no longer singing about being in love but were the sound of the feeling itself, the MBV embodied that and all the other aspects of lust, confusion, loss, bliss, often all at the same time, pushing, pulling, flowing unexpectedly in a tremulous synaesthesia of hallucinatory emo-sound-painting (cf the young Beckett saying that Joyce's Finnegan's Wake-in-progress wasn't about something, but was that something itself.).

So they don't have the deep bass throb or saturated textures of contemporary electronic music - they were doing something else, creating a sound-world that you have to interact with, dive into or allow envelop you.

Regarding the pure noise and pure ambient directions, well they did both on the Glider and Tremelo EPs as well as continuing to pursue the melody/ambient/noise combo in a unique way there and on Loveless.