Noise — vast, enveloping noise — is at the core of My Bloody Valentine's music. Halfway through "You Made Me Realise," the quartet lands on a single chord that proceeds to suck the entire song into a gawping, sense-scrambling maw of distortion. On the 1988 recorded version of the track, this "holocaust section" lasts for just over 40 seconds; live, the band have been known to stretch it out to as much as half an hour, reaching volumes of 130 decibels in the process.
It's not just about playing loud, mind you. During their brief heyday — a three-year stretch between 1988 and 1991, during which they reconfigured indie rock wholesale — My Bloody Valentine earned a reputation for being obsessively finicky about sound. Lesser acts have spent decades trying to imitate the textures on 1991 sophomore album "Loveless," which used unorthodox playing techniques, effects pedals, samplers and studio experimentation to make guitars sound like mellotrons and swirling maelstroms.
When the reunited band headlined at Fuji Rock Festival in 2008, their sound-check the previous evening ended up stretching deep into the night. Playing at the festival again this year, further down the bill and without the luxury of advance preparation, they floundered badly, their potent sonics reduced to a thin, reedy mewl. After a particularly lame rendition of "New You," Kevin Shields, the group's de facto leader, broke his customary on-stage silence only to observe, "that was f-cked up, that version."