MBV Blast

I'm sure you know this already but My Bloody Valentine slipped their first album for twenty two years out over the weekend. I can't imagine it's taken that long to come up with the title 'mbv' and I've not had a chance to listen to it properly yet, to really immerse myself in it, but the on the basis of a first hearing it's not exactly a massive step forward from Loveless, more like more of the same. But given that Loveless is peerless, this isn't really a problem. Those guitars, those disembodied voices, those drums, that headswimming noise. Sat here at the computer, with admittedly not great speakers, some of the songs- breathless fanboy alert- do sound amazing. Can't wait for the vinyl. For the moment the dl will have to do, and will at least mean I get a change from The Asphodells lp which is pretty much all I've been listening to recently. You can stream mbv at The Guardian and buy vinyl, cd or download from My Bloody Valentine's website.

Before Christmas Cat's Eyes singer Rachel Zaffira released an album which contained this rather beautiful cover version of MBV's To Here Knows When, done in a 60s acoustic chamber pop style.

To Here Knows When

The picture shows the cover of Blast!- Wyndham Lewis's house magazine of Vorticism, with his own illustration on the cover. The mashing together of linocut art, Vorticism and music here recently has been a bit random but this cover seems to summarise MBV's mbv blast quite well.

Sleeping Gas

I was in the enormous and ostentatious Westfield shopping centre at Shepherd's Bush on Thursday night, wandering round waiting for our 6th formers to finish their shopping (a treat for them after a long day treading the streets of London). I nipped into the Fred Perry shop, weary and wanting to get back the hotel and also slightly disappointed with the new season's line, when this Teardrop Explodes song came on the in-store stereo and perked me up no end- almost had me bouncing round the shop like a nipper. Although as the only customer the lad behind the till began to give me an odd look.

Sleeping Gas

In the picture is Wyndham Lewis, who London Lee pointed out was the Lord of the Vorts (Vorticists that is).