Tuesday 30 April 2013

My Bloody Valentine! Remember them?

My Bloody Valentine’s third album may be released this week. After two decades of making fans wait, Kevin Shields teased fans at a London gig on Sunday night, saying the LP may be out “in two or three days”.

Shields dropped the bombshell at the Electric in Brixton, after a member of the audience asked for news. My Bloody Valentine had already played a new song at the beginning of the show; the band’s setlist referred to it as Rough Song.

Although the follow-up to Loveless has been anticipated since 1991, the latest round of excitement began in 2008, when Shields said that the reunited My Bloody Valentine would record a new album.
Progress has been slow and secretive, but it does really seem to be happening. “I think with this [new] record, people who like us will immediately connect with something,” Shields told NME in November. “Some people think it’s stranger than Loveless. I don’t.”
In mid-December, My Bloody Valentine’s Facebook page was updated with a message: “We finished mastering the new album!”
Although Shields’ “two or three days” announcement suggests he is planning to release the album through the My Bloody Valentine website, there’s little doubt that a physical version will also be available.
A vinyl edition is “ready to go”, according to Sky News producer Peter Hoskins, and Shields has previously discussed the importance of having a physical artefact. “It’s going to come out on vinyl, with the CD as a secondary thing in the vinyl,” he said last year. “You could just put it on a website or something, but when something seems to have a soul it’s nice to give it a soul, which is to put it in a physical format.”
My Bloody Valentine will return to the UK for three shows in March.

What is this? FREE Uni?!

The desire to make learning more accessible to those without the time or resources to attend a formal course is also prompting many traditional universities to put materials online, and has inspired other online projects, such as the tuition-free University of the People, founded in 2009. Ghanimi argues these cannot replace the benefits of people meeting face-to-face in their local area and learning together.

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Daft Punk, New Release!

Daft Punk will release their first studio album in eight years in May.
The French dance duo, which consists of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have signed a new record deal with the Sony-owned Columbia label.
Little is known about the outfit’s planned fourth studio album, although Chic co-founder Nile Rodgers recently hinted that it would be released soon.

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