The My Bloody Valentine rumour machine is well and truly gearing up again.

Though Kevin Shields and his shoegaze pioneering outfit haven’t released a studio album since the early nineties, the recently reformed quartet have already been at the centre of Harvest Festival’s speculated line-up, but Time Out Tokyo now have some more concrete evidence that we could expect My Bloody Valentine to reach our shores.

The magazine reports that the cult act have just confirmed the addition of Japanese dates for a 2013 world tour, playing two dates in Tokyo and a single show in Osaka in February next year. It’s their first shows in the country in over two decades, and brings them within close proximity to Australia during its popular summer festival season.

So start placing your bets, they could be major contenders for headlining Big Day Out 2013, or do February commitments put them closer to Laneway Festival?

Regardless, the announcement of the Japanese tour further stokes reports of a long-awaited follow-up to 1991’s Loveless. Their sophomore record, along with their 1988 debut,  Isn’t Anything were both recently reissued, putting their cultural currency at an all-time high.

But what might we expect from LP3? “Drum N Bass” according to band linchpin Kevin Shields.

Speaking to The Quietus, the noise merchant detailed “one drum and bass song, from that era when we were doing drum and bass music, which never came out. We were actually inventing a new sound – and this song doesn’t really represent it, but – we were doing slowed down drum and bass music around 1993, 1994.”

Though he couldn’t give a specific time-frame for its release, he did note, “it’s almost done.”

Regardless, the confirmation of Japanese concert dates does give hope to those wishing to see the decibel-shattering event that is the My Bloody Valentine live show.

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