Alas! Monday, May 7 has come and gone; and with that, a celebration of sorts for fans of My Bloody Valentine. Back in March, the band announced they would be releasing a remastered version of Loveless, Isn’t Anything, and a compilation, EP's 1988-1991. The releases are available for purchase, but the hefty price of import CDs leaves lowly college students like myself rightly apprehensive around dishing out £7.99 ($13) for a digital copy or £8.99 ($14+Shipping) for a physical CD.
In the meantime, you can stream the remastered versions of Loveless over at The Guardian.
Each album contains two remasters. One is an analog mastering from the original tapes, while the other is a digital revamping, but deciphering between the two over the internet is nearly impossible. That’s why I want a copy so badly.
The releases, while welcomed, raises questions. Any fan of the group would rightfully ask ‘why now?’. This comes years after the band’s reunion tour, and roughly a decade after the band’s kerfuffle with various record labels ultimately led to the suspension of their third album. In an interview with Pitchfork, Kevin Sheilds alleged Sony Music of hiding the tapes. “In 2002, I tried to start working on it, but the studio that had the tapes, Metropolis Studios, lost them; the analog multi-tracks were all missing for a year. Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear.”
One can hope that the reissues along with the new album would migrate over to the US in an affordable means soon. The problem is that the American MBV distributor, Warner Brothers, has yet to pay the band a profit on the records sold in the US. “...We're still in debt.” Because of all these label issues, American fans may not see their own reasonably priced copies for quite a while.
Along with the rereleases comes news of a third MBV album. The album is nearly complete and due out later this year. It will include nine unheard tracks, one of which, Shields claims to be “like slowed down drum & bass. Except, um... it's really fast."
In excitement of the reissues, we’ve put Loveless into our internet broadcasting shuffle, available whenever we’re not on air.