Relive the all-Korean My Bloody Valentine tribute album
Even casual followers of Korean indie will be aware of the scene's deep-seated love of all things shoegaze. In 2016, this affection manifested itself as a track-for-track tribute to the My Bloody Valentine classic, Loveless.
The album is called Blue Loveless in response to Japanese MBV tribute Yellow Loveless. While Yellow has some jaw-dropping moments (the slow-paced post-rock of Sometimes by Boris being a standout), the quality of it varies in a way that the Korean counterpart doesn't.
The amount that each track draws on the source material fluctuates heavily. For example, the opening track (Vidulgi OoyoO's Only Shallow) is an amalgamation of several different sections from Loveless. It acts as a broad representation of the My Bloody Valentine sound. In that way, it is the perfect opener, a solid introduction to this album. However, one track later, and 電子羊 perform an epic psych-freak rendition of Loomer that bore almost no resemblance to the original.
The album is at its best when performers take a central idea from the MBV version and build something so distinctly them around it. Sunkyeol's Touched borrows the main riff from the original, but in a typically creative move for the band, they made it all their own. Similarly, soundtrack artist and composer ninaian contributes a sullen and moving version of Come in Alone in the style of Bat For Lashes or Chelsea Wolfe.
The album finishes nicely with The Loom's rendition of Soon. Like most of this album, it invokes the spirit of My Bloody Valentine's original while injecting it with a new set of ideas and a new identity.
Of course, comparing Blue Loveless to the original is a fool's errand. Since Blue was recorded by 12 different artists, it lacks the same cohesive brilliance that ties all of Loveless together. Yet, despite the mesh of sounds and ideas, all the covers on this album feel linked by something other than the source material: a reverence and passion for the shoegaze aesthetic.
You can hear the whole album here:
