Kenny Feinstein - Loveless: Hurts to Love

Photo by Sarah Law

Like light through a prism refracted and transparent to wavelengths, Kenny Feinstein reimagines My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless with a manifestation of delicately crafted beams of sound.
Front man for Portland, Oregon's Water Tower, Kenny Feinstein released his debut solo album, Loveless: Hurts To Love, a tribute to My Bloody Valentine, on Fluff & Gravy Records September 17th, 2013.

"I forced myself to listen to Loveless over and over because I did not understand it.  I was confused by the sounds coming from it," says Feinstein of his initial reaction to the album.  "Finally, when listening to 'Loomer' while driving around a mall in Fort Lauderdale I had an epiphany during the chorus.  I could not tell if the sound was being made by a human, a synth, a guitar, a bass or anything, but I did not care, all I could gather was that it was the most blissful sound I had ever heard."

Loomer.mp3

"The mystery was intriguing and painful.  That started the year of Loveless for me.  I listened to it every day for a year, sometimes a few times a day, sometimes all day.  I had a feeling of not being able to get close enough to the album.  This hurt me.  I tried to get closer and closer, and play it louder and louder, but I could never get as close as I wanted to.  So I decided to learn each song as accurately as possible."

The record, which contains all eleven tracks from the My Bloody Valentine classic, plus the track "Swallow" from their 1991 Tremolo EP, released nine months prior to Loveless on Creation Records, finds Feinstein paying homage to his favorite record, while not just covering it, but re-creating it with acoustic guitar, mandolin, dobro, fiddle, and dulcimer.

"This record is not just a Loveless cover, it is a different planet in the same galaxy," says Feinstein, discussing the record he spent two years making in California with record producer Jeff Kazor and engineer/co-producer Bruce Kaphan (American Music Club).
"Because we were able to spend so much time on the record, we were able to gain perspective in between recording sessions and really find what it was we were looking for in the album," furthers Feinstein.

Feinstein graduated from the School of Music at the University of Oregon, receiving his degree in Jazz performance on the guitar, plays the majority of the instruments on the record, with the help of Kaphan and Kazor, as well as infamous singer-songwriter Richard Buckner, who lent his voice and ukelele to the record.

"I approached a dear friend of mine, an amazing record producer/band leader Jeff Kazor to help me produce this record, as I knew he understood and lived through the shoegaze era," Feinstein recalls.  "I was too young to understand the shoegaze movement when it was happening.  Jeff introduced me to the engineer/co-producer of this record, Bruce Kaphan.  The three of us became a team who met once a month for about two years in Bruce's studio in Niles, CA."