Glider

Since two years passed between My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 album Isn’t Anything and the Glider EP, fans had yet to experience the absolute innovation of Kevin Shields’ “floating tremolo” guitar technique. And as MBV's opus Loveless hadn't yet been released, many of those who bought Glider on vinyl reportedly first thought their records were warped upon hearing the undulating tone-bends of the opening “Soon" and the blissed-out cacophony of the trailing instrumental title track. “Soon” proved to be MBV's best fusion of dance beats and shoegazing, so much that producer Andrew Weatherall later remixed a club version of it. Even over the acoustic guitars and jangling tambourines of “Don’t Ask Why,” the tremolo bar on Shields’ Fender Jazzmaster provides a hypnotic mantra of sonic ebbs and flows. But it’s Bilinda Butcher's heavy-lidded vocals that are truly captivating here, in both “Soon” and the wistful “Off Your Face.” This recording changed the indie game so much that not even snobby scribes could claim that they preferred the band’s earlier material.