Cocteau Twins were an influential and
prolific Scottish
alternative
rock band active from 1982 to 1997.
Their music is characterized by Robin
Guthrie's ethereal, heavily processed guitar, and Elizabeth
Fraser's distinctive vocals.
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Contents
- 1 Early
years
- 2 Mid-80s
- 3 Early
90s
- 4 Mid-90s
and the breakup
- 5 Life
after Cocteau Twins
- 6 Discography
- 6.1 Albums
- 6.2 EPs
and Singles
- 6.3 Compilations
- 7 Live
performances
- 8 References
- 9 External
links
|
Early years
Robin Guthrie (guitar) and Will
Heggie (bass),
both from Grangemouth,
Scotland,
formed the band in 1980. At a local disco, Nash, they met Elizabeth
Fraser, who eventually provided vocals.
The band's influences at the time included Joy
Division, The Birthday Party, Sex
Pistols and Siouxsie & The
Banshees. The band were named after the song The
Cocteau Twins by fellow Scotsmen 'Johnny and the
Self-Abusers' (who later renamed themselves Simple
Minds; the song "The Cocteau Twins" was also re-penned as "No
Cure"). Their debut recording, Garlands (released
by 4AD
Records in 1982), was an instant success, as was the subsequent Lullabies
EP. They themselves remain influential to aspiring post-punk
acts today.
Although the entire band was praised for their performances,
Fraser received the most attention. Even on their early recordings, her
singing was startlingly unique. At times barely decipherable, Fraser
seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth
music. All Music Guide reviewer Ned
Raggett writes that "part of her appeal is how she can make
hard-to-interpret lyrics so emotionally gripping."
Mid-80s
Will Heggie left the group after the tour that followed the
1983 release of the band's second EP, Peppermint
Pig (and subsequently joined Lowlife).
The band's sound on its first three recordings relied on the
combination of Heggie's rhythmic basslines, Guthrie's minimalist
guitar, and Fraser's voice; Cocteau Twins' next full-length LP, Head over Heels,
had to rely solely on the latter two. This led to the growth of Cocteau
Twins' characteristic sound: Fraser's voice, by turns ethereal and
earthy, combined with Guthrie's heavily effected guitars. (Guthrie has
often said that he is far more interested in the way the guitar is
recorded, than in the actual notes being played, though he later
admitted the effects and layering were due to his own technical
inabilities.) Like its very dissimilar predecessor, Head over
Heels was well-received by the public and press.
In 1983, the band participated in 4AD's This
Mortal Coil project (this spawned a cover-version of Tim
Buckley's Song to the Siren
performed by Guthrie and Fraser), and during their work for that, they
got to know Simon Raymonde (formerly a
member of Drowning Craze), who joined the group
later that year as bass player.
With Raymonde, the band released a series of critically
acclaimed albums and EPs that explored their new style. These included The
Spangle Maker (1984), Treasure
(1984), Aikea-Guinea
(1985), Tiny Dynamine
and Echoes in a Shallow Bay
(1985), and Love's Easy Tears
(1986). Raymonde, who was called in to work on the second album by This
Mortal Coil, did not participate in the recording of the fourth Cocteau
Twins LP, Victorialand
(1986), a predominantly acoustic record which featured only Guthrie and
Fraser. Raymonde returned to the group for The Moon and the Melodies
(1986), a collaboration with ambient composer Harold
Budd, which was not released under the Cocteau Twins name. The Moon and
the Melodies is most noteworthy for the majestic composition entitled
She Will Destroy You.
In 1985, 4AD signed an agreement with Relativity
Records for distribution of Cocteau Twins' releases in the US and other
territories. To commemorate the event, the compilation The
Pink Opaque (1985) was released as a way of
introducing the new, broader audience to the band's back-catalogue.
While remaining a 4AD band internationally, Cocteau Twins
finally signed a major-label contract with Capitol
Records in 1988 for distribution in the US, and released their fifth
proper LP, Blue Bell Knoll,
in October of that year.
Early 90s
The style the group had begun exploring with Head over Heels
reached its peak on Heaven or Las Vegas,
released in late 1990. The most commercially successful of their many
recordings, the album rose to the higher reaches of the UK charts
immediately after its release. However, despite the success of the
record and the subsequent concert tours, not everything was well with
the band. They parted ways with 4AD following Heaven or Las
Vegas partly because of conflicts with the label's founder Ivo
Watts-Russell, and were close to breaking up over internal problems due
in large part to Guthrie's addiction to drugs
and alcohol.
While on their international tour supporting Heaven
or Las Vegas, the group signed a new recording contract with Mercury
Records subsidiary Fontana for the UK and elsewhere,
while retaining their US relationship with Capitol. In 1991, 4AD and
Capitol released a Box Set that compiled the band's EPs from 1982 to
1990, and also included a bonus disc of rare or previously unreleased
material.
The band's seventh LP, Four-Calendar
Café, was released in late 1993. It was a
departure from the heavily-processed, complex and layered sounds of Blue
Bell Knoll and Heaven or Las Vegas,
featuring clearer and more minimalistic arrangements. This, along with
the record's unusually comprehensible lyrics, led to mixed reviews for
the album: Some critics accused the group of selling out and producing
an 'accessible album,' while others praised the new direction as a
felicitous development worthy of comparison with Heaven or
Las Vegas. The band themselves explained that Four-Calendar
Café was simply a response to the turmoil that had engulfed
them in the intervening years, with Guthrie entering rehab
and quitting alcohol and drugs, and Fraser undergoing psychotherapy.
The two had been in a long-term relationship, and by this time had a
young daughter, Lucy-Belle, born in 1989.
Mid-90s and the breakup
1995 saw the release of two new EPs: Twinlights
and Otherness.
The former consisted of four gentle acoustic songs, recorded with only piano, acoustic
guitar and voice;
Otherness, by contrast, was a collaboration with Seefeel's
Mark
Clifford, and featured four electronic remixes of both older and
then-unreleased Cocteau Twins songs. Both EPs were
labelled 'experimental' by the press, since they were very different
from the EPs the band had released in the past.
As it turned out, some of the tracks on both Twinlights
and Otherness were versions of songs from the
band's eighth album, Milk and Kisses
(1996). The record was hailed as a "return to form" by some as it saw
the return of more heavily layered guitars, and Fraser began once again
to obscure her lyrics, though not entirely. Nevertheless, reviews were,
for the most part, somewhat mixed. Two singles were taken from the
album: Tishbite
and Violaine;
both exist in two CD versions, with different b-sides included
on each. The band, augmented by an extra guitarist
and a drummer,
toured extensively to support the album - their last for
Mercury/Fontana - and in live performances seemed to have found a
cohesive freshness and power that had been lacking during their
previous outing in 1993/94. A new song, "Touch Upon Touch", which
debuted during the live shows and was recorded later in 1996, became
the last Cocteau Twins song ever released. It was also one of the two
songs written and arranged by Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde for Chinese
pop singer Faye Wong for her Mandarin album Fu Zao
released in June 1996, the other being "Tranquil Eye" from Violaine
released in October 1996.
In 1997, while recording what was to have been their ninth LP,
the trio suddenly disbanded over irreconcilable differences in part
related to the break-up of Guthrie and Fraser. While a number of songs
were partially recorded and possibly completed, the band has stated
that they will likely never be finished or released in any form.
Fans of the group were not however, left entirely
empty-handed. In 1999, Bella Union, the record label founded by
Guthrie and Raymonde, released a double-CD Cocteau Twins compilation
entitled BBC Sessions. The collection is a complete
record of the band's appearances on UK radio programs from 1983 to
1996, with rare and unreleased material included. In 2000, 4AD released
Stars and Topsoil, a compilation of selected songs
hand-picked by the band members that had been released during their
years with 4AD; all recordings had been digitally remastered by Robin
Guthrie. Finally, in 2003, 4AD followed Stars and Topsoil
with the release of digitally remastered versions of the first six
Cocteau Twins LPs.
Life after Cocteau Twins
The former members of Cocteau Twins have remained active
musically in the years since the band's demise. In addition to forming Bella
Union, Guthrie and Raymonde have produced releases from new bands
signed to that label. Simon Raymonde released the
solo album Blame Someone Else.
He also produced the posthumous album by Billy
Mackenzie from the Associates, then went on to
produce several Domino Records' artists like James
Yorkston, Archie Bronson Outfit (who he later managed) and Clearlake.
More recently he has produced the popular UK band The Duke Spirit and
has mixed the Mercury Prize nominated album The
End Of History by Fionn Regan. Robin
Guthrie released his first solo effort Imperial
and continues to create music with his band Violet Indiana and has scored the
music for the movie Mysterious Skin.
Elizabeth Fraser provided vocals for three songs on Massive
Attack's Mezzanine
in 1998 (as well as touring with them several times), for the Academy
Award-winning Lord of
the Rings film soundtracks, as well as for other, lesser-known projects
and groups. For some time, she has been working on a solo album.
On January
31, 2005
Cocteau Twins announced that they would be reforming to perform at the Coachella
Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 30, 2005, and later indicated that additional tour
dates through the fall would be added. On March 16,
however, the reunion was canceled, with Fraser pulling out for
"personal reasons", and leaving numerous fans out of pocket in terms of
air fares and canceled accommodation.
In 2006, 4AD released a limited edition compilation boxset Lullabies
to Violaine, a 4-disc set that details every
single and ep released from 1982-1996. This was shortly followed up a
few months later by two 2-disc sets of the same names, known as Volume
1 and Volume 2.
Since March 2007, the band has started airing podcasts holding
exclusive material.
Discography
Albums
| Year |
Album |
UK |
US |
Additional
information |
| 1982 |
Garlands |
- |
- |
debut album |
| 1983 |
Head over Heels |
51 |
- |
- |
| 1984 |
Treasure |
29 |
- |
- |
| 1986 |
Victorialand |
10 |
- |
- |
| 1986 |
The Moon and the Melodies |
- |
- |
recorded with Harold
Budd |
| 1988 |
Blue
Bell Knoll |
15 |
109 |
- |
| 1990 |
Heaven
or Las Vegas |
7 |
99 |
- |
| 1993 |
Four-Calendar
Café |
13 |
78 |
- |
| 1996 |
Milk
and Kisses |
17 |
99 |
- |
EPs and Singles
| Year |
Title |
UK |
US
Modern Rock |
Additional
information |
| 1982 |
Lullabies |
- |
- |
EP |
| 1983 |
Peppermint
Pig |
- |
- |
EP |
| 1983 |
Sunburst and Snowblind |
86 |
- |
EP |
| 1984 |
Pearly-Dewdrops'
Drops |
29 |
- |
EP entitled The
Spangle Maker |
| 1985 |
Aikea-Guinea |
41 |
- |
EP |
| 1985 |
Tiny
Dynamine |
52 |
- |
EP |
| 1985 |
Echoes in a Shallow Bay |
65 |
- |
EP |
| 1986 |
Love's
Easy Tears |
53 |
- |
EP |
| 1988 |
Carolyn's
Fingers |
- |
2 |
from the album Blue
Bell Knoll |
| 1990 |
Iceblink
Luck |
38 |
4 |
from the album Heaven
Or Las Vegas |
| 1990 |
Heaven
Or Las Vegas |
- |
9 |
from the album Heaven
Or Las Vegas |
| 1993 |
Evangeline |
34 |
- |
from the album Four
Calendar Café |
| 1993 |
Snow |
58 |
- |
"Winter
Wonderland" and "Frosty the Snowman" |
| 1994 |
Bluebeard |
33 |
- |
from the album Four
Calendar Café |
| 1995 |
Twinlights |
59 |
- |
"acoustic" EP,
voice and piano |
| 1995 |
Otherness |
59 |
- |
EP of songs remixed by Mark
Clifford of Seefeel,
companion to Twinlights |
| 1996 |
Tishbite |
34 |
- |
from the album Milk
and Kisses |
| 1996 |
Violaine |
56 |
- |
from the album Milk
and Kisses |
Compilations
| Year |
Title |
UK |
US |
Additional
information |
| 1985 |
The
Pink Opaque |
- |
- |
compilation
album |
| 1991 |
Cocteau
Twins |
- |
- |
ten-disc box set
consisting of all EPs up to that point and one disc of bonus material |
| 1999 |
BBC Sessions |
- |
- |
compilation
album |
| 2000 |
Stars
and Topsoil |
- |
- |
compilation
album |
| 2005 |
Lullabies
to Violaine: Singles and Extended Plays 1982-1996 |
- |
- |
limited
edition, four-disc box set of all non-album tracks. |
| 2006 |
Lullabies
to Violaine, Volume 1:
Singles and Extended Plays 1982-1990
|
TBD |
TBD |
first two of
four discs in box set shown above. |
| 2006 |
Lullabies
to Violaine, Volume 2:
Singles and Extended Plays 1993-1996
|
TBD |
TBD |
last two of
four discs in box set shown above. |
Live performances
See Cocteau Twins
performances.
References
External links
- Band members
