The swooning gods and goddesses of noise, My Bloody Valentine created this EP in 1987, when bands like Sonic Youth has already laid down the blueprint. Melody and harmony was given a kicking in an alleyway. You Made Me Realise EP is a masterpiece, from artwork to tracks.
It’s everything I love about art: melancholic, sexy, chaotic, and a big fucking racket. Bilinda Butcher and Kevin Shields were the Irish/UK version of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, a good-looking pair blending vocals and reverb FX -soaked guitar lines. I saw MBV, front row at Glasgow Barrowland later, about 1992, and it was transcendental, almost religious, all of that bollocks, as clichéd as that sounds.
The other tracks, ‘Slow’ and ‘Cigarette In Your Bed’ and’Thorn’ focus, respectively, on the carnal and the souring of relationships, but are no less beautiful and distorted than the title track. ‘Drive It All Over Me’ is more of a standard indie dancefloor track, but sprinkled with the trademark dreaminess and distortion.
My Bloody Valentine at their best were right up there with so-called ‘legacy’ artists. They made everything possible, as with Sonic Youth, Pixies, Bikini Kill, Nirvana, Babes in Toyland, etc, all a disorientating experience that left the audience punch-drunk, dizzy but grinning. This EP distilled everything I love about them, before their two brilliant albums Isn’t Anything and Loveless defined a whole generation. The video for ‘You Made Me Realise’ even emulates Sonic Youth’s promo for ‘Teenage Riot ‘with its montage effect. I hate the term “shoegaze”, their focus was always skyward.
Hit The North 