Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins
General information
Genre (s)	Dream Pop , Ambient , Ethereal , Gothic Rock , Post-Punk
founding	1980
resolution	1998
Website	www.cocteautwins.com
Founding members
singing	Elizabeth Fraser
Guitar , bass , drums	Robin Guthrie
bass	Will Heggie (until 1983)
Last occupation
singing	Elizabeth Fraser
Guitar, bass, drums	Robin Guthrie
Bass, guitar, piano	Simon Raymonde (from 1983)
Other members
guitar	Mitsuo Tate (from 1990)
guitar	Ben Blakeman (from 1990)
percussion	Dave Palfreeman (from 1993)
Drums	Benny di Massa (from 1994)

The Cocteau Twins were a Scottish band that existed from 1980 to 1998. The melancholic and dreamy guitar pop she shaped influenced a number of later founded bands, including My Bloody Valentine , All About Eve , Lush , Bel Canto , Seefeel , Slowdive , Beach House and School of Seven Bells .

history

The beginning time

The Cocteau Twins were founded in Grangemouth , Scotland in 1980 . The name goes back to an early song by the Scottish new wave band Simple Minds , which can be heard in a slightly different form as No Cure on their debut album Life in a Day (1979).

The band has its origins in punk music . About her first album of the verdict Rolling Stone : "You write songs, cut sounds."

The singer Liz Fraser, together with the oil refinery engineer and sound tinkerer Robin Guthrie and the bassist Will Heggie , tried to find an audience in her native Scotland with her singing that was as "smiled at as awe heard" (Rolling Stone) . When this failed, the trio in 1981 went to London , hoping with the help of the famous BBC - Disc jockey John Peel , a record company to find that would take them to their unusual music under contract. Peel made a few recordings with the Cocteau Twins, but the musicians got their first record deal from record seller Simon Raymonde (formerly a member of the band Drowning Craze ), Fraser, Guthrie and Heggie to Ivo Watts-Russell , the owner of the then newly founded Independent - Labels 4AD , brokered. Watts-Russell signed her and released her debut album Garlands in 1982 .

The 1980s

At the turn of the year 1982/83 the band toured Great Britain with Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark . Within a very short time the musicians Fraser and Guthrie were integrated into the London music scene and worked on the music of other projects such as This Mortal Coil , the house band of 4AD. Particularly noteworthy is the cover version of Tim Buckley 's Song to the Siren on This Mortal Coil's first album ( It'll End in Tears, 1984). Heggie left the group to eventually continue playing with the alternative band Lowlife , and was replaced by Raymonde. In quick succession, the Cocteau Twins released further LPs and singles , appeared in the British television music series Top of the Pops and thus left the small circle of the independent charts. With Treasure (1984), Victorialand (1986) and Blue Bell Knoll (1988), the Cocteau Twins continue their "Dream Pop" (Mojo) . Blue Bell Knoll marks a turning point in the musical development of the band, as the massive use of studio technology and the alienation of the guitar sound reached a climax here. This led to the fact that the band initially distanced themselves from this album a little later and shifted the focus again significantly in favor of songwriting in the follow-up Heaven or Las Vegas (1990).

To date, Blue Bell Knoll is the only 4AD release that was released as DAT in addition to the formats commonly used at the time ( CD , LP, MC ) .

The 1990s

In the US , most of their records weren't released until the early 1990s, after they went on their first US tour in 1990.

At the same time, Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde were looking for a new direction: They left the independent label 4AD and signed a contract with Fontana . While Raymonde worked on individual projects with the bands Lush and Moose , Liz Fraser worked on the clarity of her lyrics. Meanwhile mother of a daughter, she reflected in her texts about her body, about the loss of the self, about the question of whether a man is good or rather "poisonous" for her (lyrics Bluebeard ).

The final phase

While the Cocteau Twins were still an avant-garde in the early 1990s (in 1991 Fraser was nominated as best singer for the Brit Awards ), ambient and drum and bass made their music look dusty in the mid-1990s. The group tried to counteract this with the EP Otherness (1995), but formations like Portishead have now set the standards. Their music was not the business of the Cocteau Twins. With Milk & Kisses they returned to their ethereal beginnings in 1996.

In 1998 the band finally separated. Guthrie and Raymonde had already founded the Bella Union label a year earlier , which not only signed artists such as Françoiz Breut , The Wave Room or Dirty Three , but also the other works of the two label founders as well as the recordings of the Cocteau Twins for the in 1999 BBC has published.

Liz Fraser has worked with Massive Attack (Teardrop) and Yann Tiersen , among others . The release of a solo LP announced for autumn 2007 did not materialize. Robin Guthrie founded the band Violet Indiana at the beginning of the new millennium with ex- mono singer Siobhan de Maré .

A reunion concert was planned for April 30, 2005 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival , but was canceled in advance.

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)		Remarks
		UK	US
1982	Garlands	UK- silver UK	-	First published: 1982
1983	Head over heels	UK51 silver (15 weeks)UK	-	First published: 1983
1984	Treasure	UK29 silver (8 weeks)UK	-	First published: 1984
1986	Victorialand	UK10 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1986
1988	Blue Bell Knoll	UK15 (4 weeks) UK	US109 (18 weeks) US	First published: 1988
1990	Heaven or Las Vegas	UK7th silver (15 weeks)UK	US99 (19 weeks) US	First published: 1990
1993	Four-Calendar Café	UK13 (3 weeks) UK	US78 (3 weeks) US	First published: 1993
1996	Milk & Kisses	UK17 (4 weeks) UK	US99 (2 weeks) US	First published: 1996
1999	BBC sessions	UK87 (1 week) UK	-	First published: 1999
2000	Stars & Topsoil - A Collection (1982-90)	UK63 (1 week) UK	-	First published: 2000

more publishments

• 1986: The Moon and the Melodies (with Harold Budd )

Solo releases

Robin Guthrie

• 2003: Imperial
• 2006: Continental
• 2008: 3:19 (soundtrack)
• 2009: Carousel
• 2011: Emeralds

Simon Raymonde

• 1997: Blame Someone Else

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd

• 2005: Mysterious Skin (Soundtrack)
• 2007: After the Night Falls
• 2007: Before the Day Breaks
• 2011: Bordeaux

Robin Guthrie & John Foxx

• 2009: Mirrorball

Eraldo Bernocchi, Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie

• 2011: Winter Garden

Compilations

• 1985: The Pink Opaque
• 1985: Tiny Dynamine / Echoes in a Shallow Bay
• 1988: Head Over Heels / Sunburst and Snowblind
• 1991: The Box Set
• 2000: Stars and Topsoil
• 2005: Lullabies to Violaine

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)		Remarks
		UK	US
1983	Sunburst and Snowblind	UK86 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1983 EP
1984	Pearly Dewdrops Drops	UK29 (6 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1984 EP
1985	Aikea Guinea	UK41 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1985 EP
	Tiny dynamine	UK52 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1985 EP
	Echoes in a Shallow Bay	UK65 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1985 EP
1986	Love's Easy Tears	UK53 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1986 EP
1990	Iceblink Luck Heaven or Las Vegas	UK38 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1990
1993	Evangeline Four-Calendar Café	UK34 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1993
	Winter Wonderland / Frosty the Snowman	UK58 (1 week) UK	-	First published: 1993
1994	Blue Beard Four-Calendar Café	UK33 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1994
1995	Twinlights	UK59 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1995 EP
	Otherness	UK59 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1995 EP
1996	Tishbite Milk and Kisses	UK34 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1996
	Violaine Milk and Kisses	UK56 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1996

More singles and EPs

• 1982: Lullabies
• 1983: Peppermint Pig
• 1984: The Spangle Maker
• 1988: Carolyn's Fingers
• 1993: Snow

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: UK US
2. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK

Web links

• Website of the Cocteau Twins (English)
• Cocteau Twins at Discogs (English)
• Cocteau Twins on MusicBrainz (English)
• Cocteau Twins in the Internet Movie Database (English)