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Kevin Shields, the singer and guitarist with the influential shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine, has accused the Mercury Music Prize of "banning" his band's music from consideration for the award. 

Sheilds' band were left off this year's shortlist - announced on Thursday (September 12, 2013) - in favour of a slew of more commercial acts including the Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg, Laura Mvula and Rudimental. The move angered the legendary guitarist who claimed his group were being ignored for self-releasing their last album and bypassing Apple, Amazon and the major record deals.

"Isn't Mercury a phone company or something, anyway? What's that got to do with music?" Shields said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian, "We're banned by them, and do you know why? Because we're not on Amazon or iTunes. That's one of the qualifying criteria. You have to have major distribution or be on iTunes or Amazon."

Continue reading: "God Help Them" - Is Kevin Shields Right About The Mercury Music Prize?

Hop Farm Festival was due to take place in rural(ish) Kent this July as has been the routine for the festival throughout it's five year lifespan, however the fest was forced to cancel for the first time this year after poor ticket sales and forecast of sales would have resulted in a massive loss for the festival's funders.

Hop Farm big cheese Vince Power posted a statement to the festival's website yesterday, outlining the reasons behind  the festivals cancelation and apologising for disappointed fans who will miss out on the event. Power's statement read that despite the best efforts of everyone involved, organising the festival "proved too much a of mountain to climb" reasoning that the circumstances "based on poor ticket sales and the forecast selling rate [would mean] substantial losses would be made."

Hop Farm Festival suffered financial difficulties last year too, but still went ahead.

Continue reading: Hop Farm Festival Cancelled Due To Poor Ticket Sales

Shocked surprise has been replaced by gushing words and overzealous praise as critics rushed to get the first review in on the first My Bloody Valentine album released in 22 years. The band’s front man Kevin Shields had been teasing a new album – their first since the legendary Loveless – for the past few months, at one point claiming that it would be out by the end of 2012. That never happened of course, but at a recent show in London he surprised a heckler by telling them the new album would be out in a few days. That few days turned out to be last weekend, and since then the internet’s been awash with praise for LP m b v. You’d think 22 years would’ve have allowed him to think up a more inventive name.

“The songs on m b v are more melodically complex, intriguing and often pleasing than anything he has written before” The Guardian wrote, with the BBC adding “It’s an album that 22 years of speculation and analysis haven’t come close to matching the reality of. It sounds amazing, and represents an astounding return.”

Across in America Pitchfork were similarly enthused, writing “If you're wired a certain way {MBV's} mixture of desire and confusion is easy to map on to the wider world. For 22 years, the only way to get there was through Loveless and its associated EPs; now there's another path, one many of us never expected to find.”

Continue reading: Critics Weak At The Knees For My Bloody Valentine's New Album

It's been 22 years but at last shoegaze heroes My Bloody Valentine have released the follow-up to 1991's Loveless. Needless to say, people were very excited by the news.

So excited in fact that since the band made their new album, titled mbv, available to download from their website, it has crashed on more than one occasion, as fans flocked to the site to hear the new release. The notoriously secretive band, fronted by noted perfectionist Kevin Shields, have kept fans relatively in the dark over when the album would be completed, issuing a statement on their official Facebook page only last night that said the album would be release later that night.

The band went on hiatus shortly after the release of Loveless, but returned to touring in 2008 and had long whipped up rumours that they would begin recording their third album. Shields only confirmed that the band were working on a follow up during an interview with NME last November, in which he said, "I think with this record, people who like us will immediately connect with something," adding, "Based on the very, very few people who've heard stuff - some engineers, the band, and that's about it - some people think it's stranger than Loveless."

Continue reading: My Bloody Valentine Return! Excitement Causes Their Website To Crash

Conducting the release of their third album like it was some clandestine operation, My Bloody Valentine have finally released the follow-up to 1991's Loveless through their website.

The band announced the arrival of their album, titled m b v, through their Facebook page last night, posting, "We are preparing to go live with the new album/website this evening. We will make an announcement as soon as its up." Soon enough, the band relaunched their website, mybloodyvalentine.org, giving fans the chance to download the new release in the most modern fashion possible.

Earlier this week, the band's frontman Kevin Shields said the long-awaited new album "might be out in two or three days" and with the album launch late last night (Feb 2) he proved to be a man of his word. The band will be heading out on a small UK tour in March to promote the album further, following a series of gigs they have planned in Japan and Australia. MBV will be heading back to Japan in the summer to headline Tokyo Rocks and will also be playing Primavera in Barcelona.

Continue reading: My Bloody Valentine Return With First Album In 12 Years

The bassist from 90's shoe-gaze heroes My Bloody Valentine, Debbie Googe, has revealed the the band's long awaited third album is almost on the way, telling Drowned in Sound that the follow-up to 1991's Loveless is "pretty much finished."

In the interview, Googe details that that frontman and chief songwriter Kevin Shields is all but finished with writing material for what will be the band's third album, telling the website "It will definitely come out as it's pretty much finished. I mean, it's impossible to talk about time with Kevin, but in terms of percentage-wise, he's got one more track he wants to do then that's it. Everything else is recorded."

Shields, the notoriously picky perfectionist he is, has been working on and off with the album material since the early nineties, and gave first word on the immediacy of the upcoming project when he spoke to NME in November this year (12) when he said that the new album will come out this year. In the interview he also talked about the upcoming headlining slot at Japan's Tokyo Rocks Festival in May 2013, where the band will be playing exclusive material from a brand new, still untitled, album. The band have been touring together since they reformed in 2007, but the Tokyo performance will mark the first time the band will be playing entirely new material. The band are scheduled to perform three concerts in March next year across the UK, and we're sure fans will have their fingers cross that the group will be delving into some newer material when they perform.

Continue reading: My Bloody Valentine Bassist Says New Album Is 'Pretty Much Finished"

My Bloody Valentine - who promised to release a new album this month - have announced a three-day UK tour for March, 2013. Kevin Shields and company will play Glasgow Barrowlands on March 9, Manchester Apollo on March 10, and London's Hammersmith Apollo on March 12. Tickets for all three shows go on sale tomorrow at 9am (December 6, 2012).

Shields told NME last month that a new My Bloody Valentine album would be released before the end of the year, though there is still no sign of it. It is not listed on any retailer's websites and a publicist told The Guardian there was no further news. Technically, there is only two release dates left this year - December 11 and December 18 - therefore it's looking unlikely that a new record will hit shelves. However, fans will be excited at the prospect of seeing the ferociously loud band live once more. Their reputation for noise precedes the group to such an extent that earplugs were handed out to fans attending their critically acclaimed 2008 reunion shows. In his book The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize, David Cavanagh's reveals how Shields had the idea of wafting amyl nitrate fumes over the audience to heighten the live experience in the 80s.

The new shows will follow tours in Australia and Japan.

Continue reading: Earplugs At The Ready: My Bloody Valentine Announce 2013 UK Tour