In this life there are two kinds of people, those riding the vapor trail left behind by Matt Valentine (aka MV) and those left woefully unprepared to deal with navigating his slide out of the ether. Over the years Valentine has served as a singular spiritual Sherpa, changing form when necessary. From the psych-scratched inklings of Tower Recordings to the cosmic folk he divined while traversing the Golden Road, solo jaunts, a hundred and counting CD-rs with his partner Erika, and on into the current beacon of blues transmissions emanating from the nocturne pulpit of Wet Tuna, any aesthetic differences never overpower the magnetic pull of MV radiating like a beacon. There’s a lot to wade through if you’re just breaking the veil, but that’s all the more reason to nod into the Preserves for a poke around.
MVP, or Matt Valentine Preserves is the viscous adhesive that’s drawing the eras together. Recorded, casked, and cured over the past eight years and brushed upon by those who orbit Matt’s mist (Samara Lubelski, Mick Flower, J. Mascis, P.G. Six, Willie Lane, Erika Elder, Anthony Pasquarosa, Ryan Jewell, Coot Moon, and Spanish Wolfman, among others) the record is a potent elixir that feels like it was siphoned wholesale from the fever dream of a sleeping child god. Tuned to the subconscious airwaves of miasmic melt, the record stews its eight tracks together into a set of space-blues that inhale and exhale with the cosmos.