Loveless (album)

Loveless, the second studio album by Irish rock band My Bloody Valentine, came out on 4 November 1991. Creation Records handled the UK release, while Sire Records put it out in the United States. The recording process stretched from February 1989 to late 1991, with final mixing and mastering continuing into October or November of that year.

Kevin Shields—the band’s vocalist and guitarist—took the lead, spending that time exploring glide guitar technique, alternate tunings, digital sampling, and painstaking production approaches. The album landed at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart. Critics praised it heavily for its sonic breakthroughs and for what they described as Shields’ “virtual reinvention of the guitar.”

Recording

The band had originally booked time at Blackwing Studios in Southwark, London, starting in February 1989, hoping to develop a more studio-focused sound for their second LP. According to Shields, Creation Records thought the whole album could be finished in five days.

When it became obvious that wouldn’t happen, he said, “they freaked.” After months that yielded little, the group moved in September to The Elephant, a basement studio in Wapping, where they spent eight more weeks without much progress. In-house engineer Nick Robbins recalled that Shields made it clear Robbins was “just there to press the buttons.” Robbins was soon replaced by Harold Burgon, whose main contribution, Shields later noted, was showing the band how to use the studio’s computer. Shields also said the studio “confiscated” the session tapes three or four times because bills hadn’t been paid.

Burgon and Shields then spent three weeks at Woodcray studio in Berkshire working on the Glider EP, which Shields and Creation owner Alan McGee agreed would come out before the album. Alan Moulder was brought in to mix the Glider track “Soon” at Trident 2 studio in Victoria; that song later closed Loveless. Shields said of Moulder, “As soon as we worked with him we realized we’d love to do some more!” When the band returned to album work, Moulder became the only engineer Shields trusted to handle tasks like miking amplifiers.