Microcastle is the third studio album by Deerhunter . After the album had been leaked on the internet, it became available on iTunes on August 19, 2008, while physical copies were released on October 27, 2008. In the U.S. the album was released on Kranky and on 4AD in Europe. The album was recorded over the course of one week in April 2008 by Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room Studios in Brooklyn, NY. In the U.S., the album has managed to sell over 50,000 units.
90-425: Unlike Cryptograms , the band decided to forgo heavy utilization of effects pedals. Throughout the recording of the record, only a number of drum tracks and the vocals on "Agoraphobia" were treated. Of the musical direction of the new material, Bradford Cox has said "I'm more interested in the micro-structure. I want things to be a lot shorter, I don't want there to be as much long-windedness to it." The band premiered
180-472: A "unique chapter in live music". To recreate the higher tones from Loveless , Shields employed American flautist Anna Quimby. According to a friend of the band, "She had a little skirt on, black tights ... she was a little indie girl. But when she blew into the flute, it was like fucking Woodstock ." The tour became infamous for its volume. NME editor Danny Kelly attended a show he described as "more like torture than entertainment ... I had
270-442: A calm takes over." The tour saw My Bloody Valentine accused of criminal negligence by the music press, who took exception to the long period of extreme white noise played during "You Made Me Realise". In December 2000, Mojo rated the tour the second loudest in history. Despite expectations for the band to break through in the wake of the critical success of Loveless , they fell apart soon after and recorded only sporadically in
360-524: A clear view of what he wanted, but he never explained it." Most of the album was heavily influenced by Neil Young , though "What You Want" was Shields' homage to the Cure song " Just like Heaven ". Loveless was largely recorded in mono sound, as Shields felt it important that the album's sound consisted of "the guitar smack bang in the middle and no chorus, no modulation effect". Shields wavers his guitar's tremolo bar as he strums , which contributes to
450-474: A graphic equaliser preamp. After recording the track, he bounced it to another track through a parametric equaliser while he adjusted the EQ levels manually. Asked if he could have achieved the effect more easily using a wah-wah pedal, Shields said, "In attitude toward sound, yes. But not in approach." All but two of the drum tracks were built from samples of tracks performed by drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig . Because Ó Cíosóig
540-559: A half pint of lager; they hit their first note and it was so loud that it sent the glass hurtling". During the following US tour, Shields and Butcher tested their audiences' ability to sustain noise played at high volumes. According to critic Mark Kemp ; "After about thirty seconds the adrenaline set in, people are screaming and shaking their fists. After a minute you wonder what's going on. After another minute it's total confusion. The noise starts hurting. The noise continues. After three minutes you begin to take deep breaths. After four minutes,
630-598: A list of the fifty best albums of 2007. Pitchfork staff writer Marc Hogan wrote that Cryptograms "is alternately murky...ethereal, amorphous and incisive", calling the second half of the album "vastly more accessible" than the first. Mike Diver of Drowned in Sound found the album's two halves "absolutely coherent; the sequencing allows the listener space to breathe at the most opportune moments, and its leaps from ambiance into adrenaline-soaked enthusiasm...are worthy of celebration." Tiny Mix Tapes ' s Paul Haney enjoyed
720-512: A material effect on Creation's finances and the health of their staff. Dutt later said she had been desperate to leave the project, while Creation's second-in-command Dick Green had a nervous breakdown. Green recalled, "It was two years into the album, and I phoned Shields up in tears. I was going 'You have to deliver me this record.'" Shields and Butcher became afflicted with tinnitus , and had to delay recording for further weeks while they recovered. Concerned friends and band members suggested this
810-424: A mixed review; writer Jim Greer felt it was "standard-ish and dull ... The warped music is a cool idea and I recommend the album – but not on the basis of the singing or the songs." While Creation were pleased with the final album, and the initial music press reviews were positive, the label soon realised that although, in the words of plugger James Kyllo, "it was such a beautiful record, and it
900-508: A new standard for pop . It's the vaguest music ever to have been a hit." Robert Smith of the Cure discovered Loveless after a period of almost exclusively listening to disco and/or Irish bands such as the Dubliners as a means of avoiding his contemporaries and said, "[My Bloody Valentine] was the first band I heard who quite clearly pissed all over us, and their album Loveless is certainly one of my all-time three favourite records. It's
990-629: A new, more studio-based sound for their second album. Guitarist Kevin Shields said their label Creation Records believed the album could be recorded in five days. According to Shields, "when it became clear that wasn't going to happen, they freaked". After several unproductive months, the band relocated in September to the basement studio The Elephant in Wapping , where they spent eight unproductive weeks. In-house engineer Nick Robbins said Shields made it clear from
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#17330856243621080-520: A short tour of the north of England late in 1991. At the time the band were making the marketing of Loveless difficult – there would be no singles, and the band's name was forbidden to appear on the record sleeve. McGee was by now exhausted and frustrated. He recalled, "I thought: I went to the wall for you. If this record bombs, I've stolen my father's money. And they were so ... not understanding of anybody else's position." Alan McGee dropped My Bloody Valentine from Creation soon after
1170-453: A single day at a studio before deciding it was unsuitable. In May 1990, My Bloody Valentine settled on Protocol in Holloway as their primary location, and work began in earnest on the album, as well as a second EP titled Tremolo . Like Glider , Tremolo contained a song – "To Here Knows When" – that later appeared on Loveless . The band stopped recording during
1260-571: A virtual reinvention of the guitar." NME reviewer Dele Fadele saw My Bloody Valentine as the "blueprint" for the shoegaze genre, and wrote: "with Loveless you could've expected the Irish / English partnership to succumb to self-parody or mimic The Scene That's Delighted To Eat Quiche [...] But no, Loveless fires a silver-coated bullet into the future, daring all-comers to try and recreate its mixture of moods, feelings, emotion, styles and, yes, innovations." While Fadele expressed some disappointment that
1350-432: A weighted average of 35 professional critics, indicating "Universal Acclaim". Both Tiny Mix Tapes and Sputnikmusic awarded the album with a perfect score. Spin , Billboard , The New York Times and The Guardian all gave the album an 8/10. Rolling Stone rewarded the album a 3.5 score, and RS contributor, Daniel Kreps listed Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. as his favorite album of 2008. Pitchfork also rated
1440-406: Is "not the punk attitude" characteristic of Turn It Up Faggot . While Cox does not consider Cryptograms a "reaction" to its predecessor, he noted in an interview with Stylus Magazine that the group's new record "developed out of different circumstances, altogether." Deerhunter's two recording sessions produced two halves of the album with distinct musical styles. The first half of the album
1530-402: Is Steam , 'Loveless' is the outermost, innermost, uttermost rock record of 1991." Reynolds noted that his only criticism was that "while My Bloody Valentine have amplified and refined what they already were, they've failed to mutate or leap into any kind of beyond." In a review for Rolling Stone , Ira Robbins wrote that "despite the record's intense ability to disorient – this
1620-507: Is more ambient in style and includes four ambient instrumental tracks. With the song "Providence", the band aimed to create a feeling of solitude. The idea for the song came about when, while in Providence , Rhode Island during a 2005 tour, Cox had an argument with other members of the band. Having left his bandmates to cool off, Cox "walked around Providence at dusk" feeling "totally alone", while admiring his "meditative" surroundings. In
1710-401: Is real do-not-adjust-your-set stuff – the effect is strangely uplifting. Loveless oozes a sonic balm that first embraces and then softly pulverizes the frantic stress of life." Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot wrote that the band had "written a new vocabulary for the guitar, and perhaps given it another 10 years of life as rock's central instrument". Spin gave Loveless
1800-521: Is the second album from Atlanta, Georgia -based indie rock group Deerhunter , released through Kranky on January 29, 2007 on CD and vinyl . Following the 2005 release of its first full-length album Turn It Up Faggot , Deerhunter began recording material for its next record at Rare Book Room studio in New York. This initial recording session failed, due to the physical and mental state of lead singer Bradford Cox , as well as malfunctioning equipment in
1890-706: Is the second studio album by the Irish-English rock band My Bloody Valentine . It was released on 4 November 1991 in the United Kingdom by Creation Records and in the United States by Sire Records . The album was recorded between February 1989 and September 1991, with vocalist and guitarist Kevin Shields leading sessions and experimenting with guitar vibrato , non standard tunings , digital sampling , and meticulous production methods. The band recorded at nineteen different studios and hired several engineers during
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#17330856243621980-551: The Glider EP , which Shields and Creation owner Alan McGee agreed would be released in advance of the album. Alan Moulder was hired to mix the Glider song "Soon" at Trident 2 studio in Victoria; the song later appeared as the closing track on Loveless . Shields said of Moulder, "As soon as we worked with him we realized we'd love to some more!" When the group returned to work on
2070-519: The Irish Independent ' s "Top 30 Irish Albums of All Time" list. In 2014, it placed ninth on the Alternative Nation site's "Top 10 Underrated 90's Alternative Rock Albums" list. In 2013, NME ranked the album at number 18 on its " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time " list. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . In 2020, Paste named it
2160-478: The "psych-crazed pop" found in the second half of Cryptograms , citing "Spring Hall Convert", "Heatherwood", and "Strange Lights" as exemplary tracks. Nick Sylvester of The Boston Phoenix considered the first half of the album to be irregular in style and quality, but found that this gave the transition between its two halves "a black-and-white-to-Technicolor moment (or TV to HDTV, if you prefer): "Spring Hall Convert" combines Deerhunter's come-up and come-down into
2250-402: The 1991 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1999, Pitchfork named Loveless the best album of the 1990s . However, in its 2003 revision of the list, the album was moved to number two, swapping places with Radiohead 's OK Computer . A 2022 listing restored it to the top spot. Pitchfork also named Loveless the greatest shoegaze album of all time. In 2000, the album
2340-463: The CD (see alternate artwork), and came with Weird Era Cont. on CD in its own paper sleeve. Since the album has gained popularity, there has been another pressing, with both parts of the album being pressed on black vinyl in a gatefold jacket with the orange artwork originally used for the CD. Microcastle has been met with much acclaim since its release, currently holding an 81 rating on Metacritic , from
2430-466: The Deerhunter blog. Following the failed session Deerhunter returned to Atlanta. The group became acquainted with punk band Liars , who encouraged them to give recording a second try. For their second attempt, Deerhunter returned to the same rural Georgia studio in which they had recorded their debut album Turn It Up Faggot . This time successful, the album was recorded in two parts: the first half
2520-505: The Dillinger Escape Plan named Loveless one of the albums that changed his life, recalling: "When I was younger, I only listened to riffs and vocals and a more traditional style of composition. So when I heard this My Bloody Valentine record it was so abstract and strange in artistic terms that it ended up taking me on other musical paths." The band Japancakes recorded a cover album of "Loveless" which includes every song from
2610-632: The album apart from "Touched". Shields assumed Butcher's guitarist duties during the recording process; Butcher said she had not minded because she felt she "was never a great guitarist". Bassist Debbie Googe did not perform on the album, though she received a credit. Googe said, "At the beginning I used to go down [to the studio] most days but after a while I began to feel pretty superfluous so I went down less." Butcher explained, "for Kevin to actually translate to Debbie what he had in his head and play it right would have been an agonizing process." Moulder said "It wasn't collaborative at all ... Kevin had
2700-422: The album highly, naming the album 50th best record of the decade and 5th best of the year, along with awarding it with a 9.2 upon initial review. Pitchfork also named “Nothing Ever Happened” the 6th best song of the year and 81st best song of the decade. Hype Machine rated the album as 11th best of the year. All tracks are written by Bradford Cox , except where noted Cryptograms (album) Cryptograms
2790-452: The album live at Brooklyn's Market Hotel on April 11, 2008. A bonus disc, Weird Era Cont. , was released concurrently with the album. "Saved By Old Times" features an appearance by Cole Alexander of the Black Lips . His appearance was recorded over an iChat session. The original pressing of the vinyl on Kranky was one white vinyl LP, had a single panel jacket with different artwork than
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2880-488: The album's pop tracks to sound "really weird […] I always thought I would go back and redo them, but we never did." Cryptograms was followed four months later by a four-track extended play , Fluorescent Grey , which was recorded while Cryptograms was being mixed. Cox indicated that each new track was worthy of being a single; one music critic characterized the EP as being less "dreamy" than Cryptograms . When Cryptograms
2970-534: The album's prolonged recording, with its final production cost rumoured to have reached £250,000 (equivalent to £560,000 in 2024). Preceded by the EPs Glider (1990) and Tremolo (1991), Loveless reached number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and was widely praised by critics for its sonic innovations and Shields' "virtual reinvention of the guitar". However, after its release, Creation owner Alan McGee dropped
3060-438: The album's release because he could not bear working with Shields again; "It was either him or me," he told The Guardian in 2004. Loveless peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart , and failed to chart in the United States, where it was distributed by Sire Records . In 2003, Rolling Stone estimated that Loveless had sold 225,000 copies. Loveless has been a consistent critical favourite. It came in at number 14 in
3150-427: The album, Moulder was the sole engineer Shields trusted to perform tasks such as micing the amplifiers ; all the other credited engineers were told "We're so on top of this you don't even have to come to work." Shields said that "these engineers – with the exception of Alan Moulder and later Anjali Dutt – were all just the people who came with the studio ... everything we wanted to do
3240-550: The album. With the vocal tracks completed, a final mix of the album was undertaken with engineers Dick Meaney (the Jesus and Mary Chain) and Darren Allison ( Spiritualized ) at the Church in Crouch End , the nineteenth studio in which Loveless had been worked on. The album was edited on an aged machine that had been used to cut together dialog for movies in the 1970s; its computer threw
3330-767: The band as one of the most influential and inspiring bands since the Velvet Underground ." Authors Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell wrote that the album "might be so progressive that nothing else will ever match it." Metro Times called the album "the high-water mark of shoegaze," writing that its "dense production and hypnotic atmosphere drugged listeners with its sound's lovely oxymoron: at once hard and soft, up-tempo and languid, lascivious and frigid." Paul Lester of The Guardian called it "the Pet Sounds of UK avant-rock ." Musician Brian Eno said that "Soon" "set
3420-411: The band from the label as he found Shields too difficult to work with, a factor alleged to have contributed to the label's eventual bankruptcy. My Bloody Valentine struggled to record a follow-up to the album and broke up in 1997, making Loveless their last full-length release until their eventual reunited effort m b v in 2013. Since its release, Loveless has been widely cited by critics as one of
3510-428: The band to make a music video for "Lake Somerset", Cox told Sumner he "wanted a video of a turtle eating a piece of pizza." Several days later, Sumner posted his video to YouTube ; it consists of a man in a turtle suit eating pizza for four straight minutes. Cox has said that the band's greatest achievement with Cryptograms was "evoking a feeling of someone who's woken up after being strung out one too many nights…It's
3600-636: The band's 1996 album Cooler . Googe was sighted working as a cab driver in London and formed the supergroup Snowpony in 1996. Ó Cíosóig joined Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions , while Shields collaborated with Yo La Tengo , Primal Scream and Dinosaur Jr. Shields recorded new music in his home studio, but abandoned it. According to sources, some of the music was possibly influenced by jungle music . Shields said, "We did an album's worth of half-finished stuff, and it did just get dumped, but it
3690-521: The band's distinctive sound. This technique – nicknamed " glide guitar " – bends the guitar strings slightly in and out of tune. Shields said, "People were thinking it's hundreds of guitars, when it's actually got less guitar tracks than most people's demo tapes have." Unlike other bands of the shoegazing movement of the early 1990s, My Bloody Valentine did not use chorus or flanger pedals; Shields said, "No other band played that guitar like me [...] We did everything solely with
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3780-478: The difference between Ó Cíosóig's live drumming and the drum loops aside from the tracks intended to have an obviously "sampled" sound, such as the dance-oriented "Soon". The album makes extensive use of samples; according to Shields, "Most of the samples are feedback. We learnt from guitar feedback, with lots of distortion, that you can make any instrument, any one that you can imagine." In an interview with Sound on Sound , Shields said his approach to drum sampling
3870-767: The drums in September '89. The guitar was done in December. The bass was done in April. 1990 we're in, now. Then nothing happens for a year really. So it doesn't have vocals at this stage? No. Does it have words? No. Does it even have a title? No. It has a song number. "Song 12" it was called. And ... I'm trying to remember ... the melody line was done in '91. The vocals were '91. There were huge gaps though. Months and months of not touching songs. Years. I used to forget what tunings I'd used. The vocals were taped in Britannia Row and Protocol studios between May and June 1991,
3960-461: The eighth-best album of the 1990s and the second-best dream pop album of all time. Loveless has been influential on a large number of genres and artists. Clash called the album "the magnum opus of the shoegazing genre ... it raised the bar so high that it subsequently collapsed under its own weight," leading to the dissipation of the style. Critic Jim DeRogatis wrote that "the forward-looking sounds of this unique disc have positioned
4050-457: The eleven, that glorious distortion gives a fair signal of what to expect – the unexpected. Everything you hear confounds your idea of how a pop song should be played, arranged and produced." Martin Aston in Q wrote that "The instrumental 'Touched' is especially startling, like a drunken fight between a syrupy Disney soundtrack and an Eastern mantra. All in all, Loveless amounts to
4140-482: The entire album out of phase. Shields was able to put it back together from memory, but took thirteen days to master the album rather than the usual one, to Creation's dismay. As the previously prolific band were unusually quiet, the British music press began to speculate. Melody Maker calculated that the total recording cost had come close to £250,000; however, McGee, Green, and Shields dispute this. Shields argued that
4230-411: The estimated cost and Creation's near-bankruptcy were a myth exaggerated by McGee. According to Shields, "the amount we spent nobody knows because we never counted. But we worked it out ourselves just by working out how much the studios cost and how much all the engineers cost. £160,000 was the most we could come to as the actual money that was spent". In Green's opinion, the estimate made by Melody Maker
4320-432: The feeling of being lovesick and very spaced-out." Cryptograms received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic , which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 77, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Pitchfork awarded the album the publication's "Best New Music" accolade, and later placed it fourteenth on
4410-414: The first time vocalist Bilinda Butcher was involved in the recording. Shields and Butcher hung curtains on the window between the studio control room and the vocal booth, and communicated with the engineers only when they would acknowledge a good take by opening the curtain and waving. According to engineer Guy Fixsen, "We weren't allowed to listen while either of them were doing a vocal. You'd have to watch
4500-481: The following two decades. Unable to deliver a third album, Shields isolated himself and "went crazy," drawing comparisons in the music press to the behavior of musicians such as Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd . The other band members went their own ways; Butcher contributed vocals to Collapsed Lung's 1996 single "Board Game" and two tracks ("Ballad Night" and "Casino Kisschase") from
4590-667: The greatest albums of all time, a landmark work of the shoegaze subgenre, and as a significant influence on various subsequent artists. In 2012, it was reissued as a two-CD set, including remastered tracks and a previously unreleased half-inch analogue tape version, and peaked on several international charts. In 2013, Loveless was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). My Bloody Valentine were scheduled to record at Blackwing Studios in Southwark , London for February 1989, and intended to conceptualise
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#17330856243624680-469: The group seemed to disassociate themselves from dance music and reggae basslines, he concluded: " Loveless ups the ante, and, however decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect." Melody Maker writer Simon Reynolds praised the album, and wrote that Loveless "[reaffirms] how unique, how peerless MBV are." He wrote, "Along with Mercury Rev 's Yerself
4770-403: The hallway". He described himself feeling as close to them as if they were his sisters. The same day he recorded "Spring Hall Convert" on a karaoke machine ; Cox wanted the song to reflect the "acid trip" he experienced seeing his friends in this light. He calls the song's drum track characteristic of his "stonedness" at the time, adding that " Hydrocodone was [also] a factor." The lyrics of
4860-491: The instrumental track "Red Ink", Cox and drummer Moses Archuleta worked to create an atmosphere in which the listener is dreaming he or she is dead and the experience of death feels like reality. The second part of the album, which begins with "Spring Hall Convert", contains more elements of psychedelic and pop music . In an interview with L.A. Record , Archuleta remarked that the band often received letters from fans who had listened to their music while stoned . He noted
4950-417: The meters on the tape machine to see if anyone was singing. If it stopped, you knew you had to stop the tape and take it back to the top." On most days, the couple arrived without having written the lyrics for the song they were to record. Dutt recalled: "Kevin would sing a track, and then Bilinda would get the tape and write down words she thought he might have sung". In July 1991, Creation agreed to relocate
5040-423: The mix. They are for the most part highly pitched, although at times Shields sang the higher register and Butcher the lower. According to Shields, because the band had spent so long working on the album's vocals, he "couldn't tolerate really clear vocals, where you just hear one voice", thus "it had to be more like a sound ." Butcher said of her "dreamy, sensual" style vocals: "Often when we do vocals, it's 7:30 in
5130-407: The money spent came from the band's own funds, while "Creation probably spent fifteen to twenty thousand pounds of their own money on it, and that's it. They never showed us any accounts, and then they got bought out by Sony ". While Butcher contributed about a third of its lyrics, most of the music on Loveless was written and performed by Shields; according to Shields, he is the only musician on
5220-434: The morning; I've usually just fallen asleep and have to be woken up to sing." To aid this effect, Shields and Ó Cíosóig sampled Butcher's voice and reused it as instrumentation. The layered vocals on "When You Sleep" were born out of frustration with trying to get the right take. Shields commented that "The vocals sound like that because it became boring and too destructive trying to get the right vocal. So I decided to put all
5310-535: The most uplifting rock song I've heard in a while, an explosion of gritty Velvet downstrums and swirling vocal harmonies." The first half of Cryptograms was called "the problem child" by Kevin Elliott of Stylus Magazine , characterizing this child as having been "medicated at a young age to subdue constant anxiety and the fear of death, overly mired in thoughts of regret and anguish, overwhelmed with ideas and insight." Mike Schiller of PopMatters found that because
5400-497: The negative connotations that come with being called a "psychedelic" band, and considered the group to be "pretty clean…[and] sober" in contrast, adding, "That’s funny that that’s people’s idea of what we’re into." "Spring Hall Convert" originates from a demo Cox first recorded in October 1998 when he was sixteen. On the Deerhunter blog, Cox wrote of two girls he knew from his school as one day being "bathed in this golden spring light in
5490-431: The original in the same sequence. The cover album was released on Darla Records in 2007. In 2013 Kenny Feinstein of the bluegrass band Water Tower released a solo cover album of Loveless entitled Loveless: Hurts to Love (Fluff & Gravy). The album is mostly acoustic and features a wide assortment of instruments including guitar, piano, mandolin, violin, bass, cello, harmonium, and dobro. Feinstein plays most of
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#17330856243625580-530: The outset that Robbins "was just there to press the buttons". Robbins was quickly replaced by Harold Burgon, but according to Shields, Burgon's main contribution was to show the group how to use the in-studio computer. According to Shields, the session tapes were "confiscated" by the studio "three or four times" due to lack of payment. Burgon and Shields spent three weeks at the Woodcray studio in Berkshire working on
5670-486: The pair were due to record the vocals. They worked diligently to ensure the lyrics were not lacklustre, but made few changes; Shields said, "There's nothing worse than bad lyrics." Nonetheless, pressed by Select ' s David Cavanagh to reveal just the first line of "Loomer", Butcher refused, and Shields claimed to have "absolutely no idea" what she was singing. After the album's release, My Bloody Valentine toured Europe, an event music critic David Cavanagh described as
5760-448: The production to Eastcote studio, following unexplained complaints from Shields. However, the cash-poor Creation Records was unable to pay the bill for their time at Britannia Row, and the studio refused to return the band's equipment. Dutt recalled, "I don't know what excuse Kevin gave them for leaving. He had to raise the money himself to get the gear out." Shields' unpredictable behavior, the constant delays, and studio changes were having
5850-464: The provocative and the esoteric", the band often "overreach[es] and end[s] up hitting something much more ordinary, predictably "experimental"…in a genre that's supposed to be anything but." Dom Sinacola of Cokemachineglow stated that all of Cryptograms "sounds, as a whole, too coherently cold", the tracks "Providence" and "Heatherwood" being exceptions. The album placed high on lists of the best albums of 2007 of several publications, earning spots in
5940-514: The second half of Cryptograms "fixate[s] on examples of Deerhunter's songcraft, which is actually somewhat average", the use of delay effects "mask[s] whatever deficiencies in musicianship Deerhunter might choose to hide". He believes the potential seen in the first half of the album is lost in the second. AllMusic writer Marisa Brown felt the band's ambient music is used to the extent that it becomes "commonplace, despite its avant-garde leanings." The writer found that when Deerhunter "aims for
6030-485: The sound of someone [Shields] who is so driven that they're demented. And the fact that they spent so much time and money on it is so excellent." Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins told Spin : "It's rare in guitar-based music that somebody does something new [...] At the time, everybody was like, 'How the fuck are they doing this?' And, of course, it's way simpler than anybody would imagine." Greg Puciato of
6120-450: The sparse output to a lack of inspiration. A third My Bloody Valentine album, m b v , was finally released in 2013, 22 years after Loveless . Although Shields feared a critical panning, Loveless received critical acclaim. "An album without parallel", wrote Andrew Perry in Select . "Its creative inspiration defies belief. Though 'To Here Knows When' is pretty well the weirdest track of
6210-560: The studio. The band returned to Atlanta, only giving recording a second try after encouragement from members of the band Liars . The final version of Cryptograms was recorded in two separate day-long sessions, months apart, resulting in two musically distinct parts—the first includes more ambient music while the second contains more pop music elements. Cox sang most of the record's lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness manner; they include themes of death, companionship, and Cox's experiences with his genetic disorder Marfan syndrome . Cryptograms
6300-558: The summer of 1990 to tour in support of the release of Glider . When Moulder returned to the project in August, he was surprised by how little work had been completed. By that point, Creation was concerned by how much the album was costing. Moulder left again in March 1991 to work for the Jesus and Mary Chain . In an interview with Select , Shields explained the stop-start nature of his recording, using "When You Sleep" as an example: We recorded
6390-493: The time. The group was also working with malfunctioning equipment, including an out-of-tune piano and an uncalibrated tape recorder . Cox later described the results of these sessions as sounding like "if you listen to Loveless on mushrooms , and I mean that in not a complimentary way". In an interview with Pitchfork , Cox said that the music was "on a scratched CD-R under my bed", which "nobody will ever hear". These tracks were later made available, in mixtape form, on
6480-729: The top twenty with Tiny Mix Tapes , The Boston Phoenix and Drowned in Sound . An article by Pitchfork gave musicians the opportunity to publicize their favorite records from 2007. Cryptograms received praise from Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear , ranking the album as his third favorite of 2007. Klaxons 's James Righton and Black Lips 's Cole Alexander placed the album on their own top tens as well. Music written by Moses Archuleta, Bradford Cox , Josh Fauver, Colin Mee and Lockett Pundt , except where noted. Lyrics by Bradford Cox. Deerhunter Production Loveless (My Bloody Valentine album) Loveless (stylized in lowercase )
6570-406: The track reflect Cox's experiences with his genetic disorder Marfan syndrome . As a teenager he underwent "extensive" surgeries for his chest, ribs, and back. The lyrics reflect the experience of someone moving in and out of consciousness during chemotherapy , while missing their friends and memories of a normal life. The original lyrics of the song written in 1998 were not changed when the track
6660-471: The tremolo arm." Shields aimed to use "very simple minimal effects", which often were the result of involved studio work. He stated, "The songs are really simply structured. A lot of them are purposely like that. That way you can get away with a lot more when you mess around with the contents." In a 1992 Guitar World interview, Shields described how he achieved a sound akin to a wah-wah pedal on "I Only Said" by playing his guitar through an amplifier with
6750-425: The vocals in. (It had been sung 12 or 13 times) ." He explained: On "When You Sleep" it sounds like me and Bilinda singing together, but it's just me – me slowed down and me speeded up at the same time. Some songs we sang over and over until we got bored – usually between 12 and 18 times. I started sorting through the tapes and it did my head in, so I just played them all together and it
6840-486: Was a result of the unusually loud volumes the group played at their shows, which Shields dismissed as "ill-informed hysteria". Although Alan McGee was still positive about his investment, the 29-year-old Green, who by this time was opening the label's morning post "shaking with fear", became a concern to his co-workers. Publicist Laurence Verfaillie, aware of the label's inability to cover further studio bills, recalled Green's hair turning grey overnight, which she attributed to
6930-417: Was generally well received by critics, and several publications placed the album on their lists of the top albums of 2007. Deerhunter first attempted to record their second album in 2005 with folk musician Samara Lubelski at Rare Book Room studios in New York. This recording session failed, due in part to the physical and mental state of lead singer Bradford Cox, who had influenza and walking pneumonia at
7020-472: Was informed, in part, by hip hop artists like The Bomb Squad and their production for Public Enemy . "I was hearing really cool music made by hip-hop groups that were sampling stuff... [T]he whole thing about sampling back in those days is that people really started to mess with the key... I was hearing a lot of music that you just didn’t really know what was creating that sound." The vocals, equally provided by Shields and Butcher, are kept relatively low in
7110-492: Was ranked at number 22 on Spin 's list of "100 Greatest Albums 1985–2005," with Chuck Klosterman writing that "whenever anyone uses the phrase swirling guitars , this record is why. A testament to studio production and single-minded perfectionism, Loveless has a layered, inverted thickness that makes harsh sounds soft and fragile moments vast." In 2008, Loveless topped The Irish Times ' "Top 40 Irish Albums of All Time" critics' list, and in 2013, it placed third in
7200-573: Was re-recorded for Cryptograms . In "Octet", Cox sings "I was the corpse that spiraled out into phantom hallways". The imagery of this song was inspired by the cover art of the Grove paperback edition of the Dennis Cooper novel Closer . In the album’s closing track, "Heatherwood", Cox tells of the house he was born in, where he believes he will return to die. "Strange Lights" is a song about "companionship, and facing uncertainty with someone". The song
7290-403: Was really good – like one, vaguely distinct voice. The lyrics are deliberately obscure; Shields joked that he considered rating various attempts to decipher the words on the band's website according to accuracy. He claims that he and Butcher "spent way more time on the lyrics than ever on the music". The words were often written in late-night eight- to ten-hour-long sessions before
7380-456: Was recorded over one day-long session, completely filling the reel of tape the band had brought with them. The last song of this recording session, "Red Ink", ends with the tape spinning off the reel. The second half, recorded months later over a single day in November, begins with the song "Spring Hall Convert". During this recording session Cox had the flu, and his congestion caused his voice on
7470-474: Was released on vinyl as a double album, the Fluorescent Grey tracks took up the fourth side. Cryptograms is more "subdued and introverted" musically, according to Cox, than Deerhunter's first release Turn It Up Faggot . Cox has shown disdain for that record in interviews, saying it "sounds like 2002—angry, post-hardcore dance punk. We were really young and angry." In contrast, Deerhunter's new album
7560-533: Was suffering from physical ailments during the recording, he recorded samples of various drum patterns he was able to perform. According to Shields, "[i]t's exactly what Colm would have done, it just took longer to do." Ó Cíosóig recovered enough to actively participate in the recording of three songs: "Touched" (which was composed and programmed entirely by him), and recording live drums on "Only Shallow" and "Come in Alone." Shields believes that listeners are unable to tell
7650-449: Was understated by £20,000, and that "once you'd even got it recorded and mixed, the very act of compiling, EQ-ing, et cetera took weeks on its own". In December 1991, Shields said that most of the money claimed to have been spent on the album was simply "money to live on" over three years, with the album itself costing only "a few thousand". He also claimed that the album represented only four months' work over two years. He said that most of
7740-461: Was voted number 63 in Colin Larkin 's All Time Top 1000 Albums . In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 219 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time , 221 in a 2012 revised list and 73 in another revised list published in 2020. In 2004, The Observer ranked it at number 20 in its "100 Greatest British Albums" list, declaring it "the last great extreme rock album." The album
7830-431: Was wonderful to have it ... it just didn't sound like a record that was going to recoup all the money that had been spent on it." Alan McGee liked the record, but said, "It was quite clear that we couldn't bear the idea of going through that again, because there was just nothing to say that [Shields] wouldn't do exactly the same again. That's enough. Lets step back". Despite a severe shortage of money, Creation funded
7920-426: Was worth dumping. It was dead. It hadn't got that spirit, that life in it." He said later, "I just stopped making records myself, and I suppose that must just seem weird to people. 'Why'd you do that?' The answer is, it wasn't as good [as Loveless ]. And I always promised myself I'd never do that, put out a worse record." He told Magnet of his certainty in recording another My Bloody Valentine album, and attributed
8010-474: Was written by guitarist Lockett Pundt , and is based on a dream he had in which himself, Cox, and a third person "walked into the sun together, knowing it was going to kill us", as described by Cox. The idea for the song "Lake Somerset" came from a trip Cox took to the zoo while hung over , during which he saw a turtle eating carrots. "It was cool and adorable…It had this cute neck and was very small. It chewed slowly." When video producer James Sumner approached
8100-451: Was wrong, according to them." The band gave credit on the album sleeve to all present during the recordings, "even if all they did was fix tea", according to Shields. During the spring of 1990, Anjali Dutt was hired to replace Moulder, who had left to work with the bands Shakespears Sister and Ride . Dutt assisted in the recording of vocals and several guitar tracks. During this period, the band recorded in various studios, often spending
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