Kevin Shields

There are two artists by the name of Kevin Shields. 1. Kevin Shields (born 21 May 1963) is an Irish alternative rock musician, singer-songwriter and producer, best known as the vocalist and lead guitarist of My Bloody Valentine. He has collaborated with Patti Smith and been a touring member of Primal Scream, as well as producing several artists and contributing solo material to the 2003 film, Lost In Translation. Shields was born in New York, United States and raised in Dublin, Ireland, after moving back with his parents and siblings as a child. In Dublin, he formed punk band The Complex with drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig and later, the post-punk band A Life in the Day. Shields and Ó Cíosóig formed My Bloody Valentine in 1983 and experienced several lineup and location changes until 1987, when its most notable featuring vocalist/guitarist Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe joined. Shields has a unique guitar sound, which lies in his approach to performing the instrument. Using a selection of Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, he manipulates custom tremolo arms while strumming chords, which he claims contributes a lot to the overall sound of My Bloody Valentine. Shields combines this technique with excessive volumes to produce better sustain, tremolo modulation effects, and reverse reverb effects. After releasing My Bloody Valentine's seminal 1991 album Loveless, the band signed the band a major label deal with Island Records for £250,000. The contract was terminated in 2001, four years after My Bloody Valentine's hiatus, after Shields failed to produce material. The band reunited in 2007 and began completing m b v, its third studio album, which was released in 2013. 2. Kevin Shields was the experimental noise pseudonym of Eva Aguila from 2005-2010, a noise musician in Portland (formerly of Los Angeles), who is also part of Caldera Lakes, and formerly of Winners and Gang Wizard. Kevin Shields was named with the intention of being anonymous as a Mexican woman in the white male centric noise scene of the early 2000’s. Inspired by structuralist filmmaker Stan Brakhage, Aguila performed using an obsolete piece of equipment called Magnasync Moviola Synchronizer utilized by film editors to sync audio with 35mm film. Using the Synchronizer as a tape looper, Aguila created repetitive meditative sounds as an exercise of endurance to achieve visceral sounds of sheer bliss. The repetitive motion was an act of ritual needing to be performed in order to achieve the cathartic sounds of rhythmic noise. Her musical discography features releases on Ecstatic Peace, Blackest Rainbow, and Weird Forest. Aguila has toured extensively across the US, Europe and Mexico. She has been reviewed in international magazines such as The Wire and Aurthur Magazine. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.