British music writers spent the mid-1990s selling a war. On one side, shoegaze: introverted, effects-drunk, staring at the floor. On the other, Britpop: chins up, choruses out, Union Jack on the amp. The story needed enemies, and it got them. What it conveniently ignored was that one guitarist quietly held a passport to both sides. [&he
Ask most people to explain the sound of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and they will point at a pedalboard. Fuzz, reverb, chorus, a delay or two, stacked until the guitars melt. It is a tidy story and it is mostly wrong. The thing that gives Loveless its seasick, underwater tuning is not a box on […]
