Ecstasy is the second mini album by the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine, released on 23 November 1987 on Lazy Records. Released in a limited edition of 3,000 copies, it was the band's final release for Lazy Records and second to feature vocalist and guitarist Bilinda Butcher, who was recruited in April 1987 following the departure of original My Bloody Valentine vocalist David Conway. Ecstasy followed the noise pop and twee pop standards of My Bloody Valentine's earlier releases for the label, drawing influence from various artists including The Jesus and Mary Chain, Love and The Byrds, and the album distanced the band further from their earlier post-punk and gothic rock sound.
The album experienced several technical and financial problems during its recording sessions, including errors in the mastering process, and the band were dissatisfied with its outcome; although upon its release, Ecstasy received moderate critical acclaim and peaked at number 12 on the UK Independent Albums Chart. The album was later combined with My Bloody Valentine's preceding single, "Strawberry Wine", and reissued on the compilation album Ecstasy and Wine (1989), which was released on Lazy Records without the band's consent.
Background
Following minor success on the underground scene after the release of The New Record by My Bloody Valentine (1986) and 1987's "Sunny Sundae Smile", original My Bloody Valentine vocalist David Conway left the band due to a gastric illness, disillusionment with music and his ambitions to become a writer. The remaining members—guitarist Kevin Shields, drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig and bassist Debbie Googe—considered splitting up and forming a new band under a different name. However, the band placed advertisements for a vocalist in the local music press in London, which Shields referred to later as "pointless, … disastrous and excrutiating " due to the advertisements attracting a number of Morrissey inspired vocalists who he referred to as "fruitballs". Through mutual friends the band recruited two vocalists, Joe Byfield and Bilinda Butcher. After performing one show in April 1987 with both on vocals, My Bloody Valentine considered Byfield "unsuitable" for the band and he was subsequently fired. Butcher, whose prior musical experience had been playing classical guitar as a child, and singing and playing tambourine "with some girlfriends for fun", was chosen as My Bloody Valentine's new vocalist and began rehearsing with the band in the middle of 1987.
Lazy Records, on which the band released "Sunny Sundae Smile", requested a full-length album from My Bloody Valentine during summer 1987. The band refused the label's request, claiming their newly formed line-up "had only been together a couple of months and hadn't really had time to get settled". However, the band compromised and agreed to record a mini album, provided they could release a single beforehand. The preceding single, "Strawberry Wine", was released on 9 November 1987 and peaked at number 13 on the UK Independent Singles Chart.
Recording
The recording sessions for Ecstasy took place a week after the recording sessions for "Strawberry Wine". My Bloody Valentine spent a total of 10 days recording the album. According to Kevin Shields, the sessions "had no direction and [the band] didn't even know what [they] were doing" and "bashed out all these tunes quickly, very demo-like". A number of songs were recorded that did not feature on the final release, as the band considered them "awful". However, the sessions were "the first time [the band had] actually played around properly in the studio", which resulted in "extreme" and "quite nasty" guitar sounds, which My Bloody Valentine would later become associated with.
Ecstasys recording was plagued by technical and financial errors, which impacted the eventual release of the album. The mastering process was affected by the album's engineer Steve Nunn, who mislaid the source material of the final mix prior to its transfer to the master recording. Shields subsequently "brought an independent engineer in to the studios to point out what was wrong" but Lazy Records refused to invest further finances into the album's recording process. As a result, "much of what was originally the sound of Ecstacy was lost, and much of the tone was dulled" and the album "showed a group who appeared to have run out of money half way through recording".