The upshot, then, is MBV crossed with a darker version of The Cocteau Twins. It might not be the real thing but it’s a lot more than a guilty pleasure.
The upshot, then, is MBV crossed with a darker version of The Cocteau Twins. It might not be the real thing but it’s a lot more than a guilty pleasure.
The way it probably happened was this: Pluramon, or Marcus Schmickler to his mother, woke up one sunny morning in Cologne and thought – ‘Let’s listen to some My Bloody Valentine.’ But as he gets ready to place the platter on his turntable he realises that the groove on the record is almost worn out through overplaying. ‘Damn Kevin Shields!’ he cries. But he knows that Kevin probably won’t release any more music – how else can he hope to keep the MBV mystique intact? ‘Bugger it,’ thinks Pluramon, ‘I’ll make my own MBV album then.’ But because Pluramon was particularly inspired that morning he had another shit-hot thought: ‘I’ll get Julee Cruise to do the vocals. That’ll show Shields!’
Dreams Top Rock kicks off with Time For A Lie – over a typical MBV fuzz-scape a bass pulses, guitars scrape and Julee sings as only Julee can. She sings of
beautiful lovers walking under sunny skies and moonlitnights. But, rather like the Lynchian world that firstintroduced her to most people, things are somewhat darker beneath the surface: ‘The people stare and wish they were us / They’ll never know that there’s no trust / And everything is fucked up. / It’s a wonderful time in our lives…’
On Night Academy Julee takes something of a back seat – she’s barely audible
over the clatter of huge industrial slabs of guitar. Every now and again these disappear, as though a switch has been flicked somewhere, but they soon reappear and grind away for all they are worth. The pace changes for Flageolea. It’s a jazzy little number with brushed drums, clarinet and meandering synths. Julee tells us over and over that she’s not going to stay.
Have You Seen Her opens with glitchy guitars before the Spectorian wall of guitar sound returns and backdrops Cruise doing her best Elizabeth Fraser impression. Hello Shadow is – well, it’s pure MBV – whilst Difference Machine starts out in a country-ish fashion with table-top guitar and scuffed drums. Then it gets weird – a semi-robotic female voice gibbers nonsense before the guitars are eventually unleashed. After the opening track is reprised – albeit in a slower and less guitar drenched version – the album closes with Log. Guitars shriek over a piano and drum led frug before Cruise joins in along with some
synths, some more guitars and what appears to be a male choir.
The upshot, then, is MBV crossed with a darker version of The Cocteau Twins. It might not be the real thing but it’s a lot more than a guilty pleasure. In fact
it’s enough to make anyone of a certain age very happy indeed.