Kevin Shields

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?

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