My Bloody Valentine debut a new song at Meltdown Festival: Watch
When we reported My Bloody Valentine's first live gig in five years that went down on Friday night (June 22), we lamented how there was no sign of new material and chalked it up to frontman Kevin Shields' policy of keeping things tightly under wraps. But it looks like our evaluation was slightly premature. Much to our delight and the delight of MBV fans across the world, the Dublin based shoegaze pioneers previewed a new, untitled track during their performance at Meltdown Festival last night (June 23).
Earlier this year (April 30), they announced plans to release two new EPs. It’s not been confirmed whether the as-yet-untitled track performed last night will appear on the EPs. You can see some fan-filmed footage of the performance below, as well as a bootleg recording.
According to the indieheads subreddit, MBV’s set also featured a rare live performance of the Loveless track 'What You Want'. Speaking of the new EPs back in April, Kevin Shields told Sound On Sound magazine one of the EPs will be released this summer, with a second one to follow in spring 2019. Shields also said he wants to make a double-album version of ‘Loveless’ available. Shields also revealed how getting back on the road will act as a sort of deadline for new material. “We’re going to play live again,” Shields said at the time, “so that’s always a really good way to guarantee that we’ll get the record done.”
Shields also previously spoke about how the band had started recording in analog last summer. “We only really got backing track stuff done, drums and stuff,” he said. “And then I’ve only really got into it, now, essentially because I’m not making an album in the way I would normally make an album, which is a self-contained thing."
“It’s more like I’m making an EP, but I don’t want to be constrained to four songs or a certain length or anything,” he continued. “It’s really an EP, but it’s a sprawling EP. I’m going to do a couple of them before I do an album.” He also added that the band would “start introducing new ideas” into their live set at shows this summer. “I just want to mix it up a bit and get away from my ‘every 22 years make an album and then tour and disappear for five years’,” he said. Indeed, disappearing for five years has become My Bloody Valentine's M.O. in the recent past and for the fans' sake, we hope that Shields is just joking about it this time around.
The as-yet-untitled EPs serve as the follow-up to My Bloody Valentine’s 2013 comeback LP, 'm b v.' Meanwhile, they’re due to play a couple more European festivals before making their way to their way to the US in July.
