Bilinda Butcher

During My Bloody Valentine's hiatus, Butcher collaborated with two major bands. She performed lead vocals on two tracks—"Ballad Night" and "Casino Kisschase"—on the hip hop band Collapsed Lung's album Cooler (1996), and performed backing vocals on the Dinosaur Jr song "I Don't Think" from Hand It Over (1997). At Primavera Sound 2013, Butcher performed with The Jesus and Mary Chain, providing vocals on "Just Like Honey".

My Bloody Valentine attempted to record a third studio album after signing with Island Records in October 1992 for a reported £250,000 contract. The band's advance went towards the construction of a home studio in Streatham, South London, which was completed in April 1993. Several technical problems with the studio sent the band into "semi-meltdown", according to Shields, and Butcher left the band in 1997, leading to an indefinite hiatus. My Bloody Valentine reunited in 2007, and released their third album, m b v, in 2013.

Butcher was recruited as a vocalist for My Bloody Valentine in April 1987. She replaced original vocalist David Conway and shared vocal duties briefly with Joe Byfield. Butcher, whose prior musical experience was playing classical guitar as a child and singing and playing tambourine "with some girlfriends for fun", learned that the group needed a backing vocalist from her boyfriend, who had met drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig on a ferry from the Netherlands. At her audition for the band, she sang "The Bargain Store", a song from Dolly Parton's 1975 album of the same name. She was chosen as a vocalist ahead of "this girl, Julie", who was in a relationship with Douglas Hart from The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Butcher was featured as co-vocalist and co-guitarist on My Bloody Valentine's non-album single, "Strawberry Wine", and the band's second mini album, Ecstasy, both of which were released in 1987 on Lazy Records. She performed vocals and guitar on all further My Bloody Valentine releases, until the band's second studio album Loveless (1991)—on which her guitar duties were performed by co-vocalist and guitarist Kevin Shields. She contributed a third of the lyrics to Isn't Anything (1988) and Loveless, as well as other releases including You Made Me Realise (1988), Glider (1990) and Tremolo (1991).

Bilinda Jayne Butcher (born 16 September 1961) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, best known as a vocalist and guitarist of the shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine.

Butcher has said that growing up in Golden Valley was difficult as it was "very conservative". She has said that she was considered "a weirdo" as she wore clothes based on 1920s fashion and listened to records on a portable gramophone. Butcher stated: "My mother thought I was up in my butts. I never watched the news or read the papers; it was like I lived in another era. Everybody was into punk and I was living in the [19]20s and [19]30s." At age sixteen, Butcher moved back to London and began studying dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, but dropped out after nine months due to developing a case of cystitis caused by a chronic urinary infection. She developed a serious liver disease as a result of mistreatment by doctors.