<p>While Jesus & Mary Chain invented a sort of pop-surf noise with a retro spin, My

Bloody Valentine offered its most avant-garde and experimental side, which
eventually led to shoegaze. Along with Colm Ó Cíosóig on the drums, Deb Googe on
bass, and Bilinda Butcher on vocals and the guitar, Kevin Shields made his debut
with a sort of rock noise drawing from Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Signed by
Creation Records, Alan McGee’s label that released in 1984 the first single of the
Reid brothers (<em>Upside Down</em>), My Bloody Valentine dropped their sonic bases
on a first album titled <em>Isn’t Anything</em>, released in late 1988. The wall of
sound was already pretty strong, but the more dreamlike option only truly appeared
in their following two EPs, <em>Glider</em> (1990) and <em>Tremolo</em> (1991), and
most importantly on their masterpiece: <em>Loveless</em> (1991). When this album −
that many consider to be one of the most important records of the 90s – dropped, it
was hard not to be stunned by such a guitar-filled cathedral, the vocals buried
under tons of saturation and reverb, the apocalyptic rhythmic and the repeating
motifs. An American who emigrated from Dublin with his parents at the age of 10,
Shields sculpts sound like no one before him. Behind a form of extremism that never
lost an ounce of violence over the years, <em>Loveless</em> is able to touch the
listener’s soul and senses. Nothing seems vane nor gratuitous in this piece, that
owes as much to Jesus & Mary Chain and the Cocteau Twins than Steve Reich. One may
actually wonder if this birth of shoegaze didn’t also signal its death. After all,
didn’t they pack everything in this 48-minute masterpiece, leaving no room for
their followers? The band itself didn’t survive this (rather critical than popular)
triumph, and slowly died off in the years that followed…© Marc Zisman/Qobuz</p>