Robin Guthrie (guitars/effects/tapes) and his friend Will Heggie (bass) formed Cocteau Twins in 1982, recruiting Elizabeth Fraser (vocals), whom they had met in a local disco where Robin DJ`ed. Inspired by the punk movement, the band recorded two demo tapes, one of which was sent to 4AD label manager Ivo Watts-Russell, the other handed by Robin to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Nine days later, on a budget of just £900, the debut eight-track Garlands was completed at 4AD (1982) with a Peel session arranged just prior to its release. The music was a blend of ominous pulsating bass, stark TR808 drums, steady cycles of electric guitar and great screeching arcs of feedback, smoothed out with chorus and reverb, over which Liz alternated dry, brittle utterings with full-power, vocal gymnastics. Garlands was an immediate hit in the indie charts, while press and public speculated over the content of Liz's lyrics, which were mostly rendered unintelligible by her unique vocal style.

Resisting overtures from major record labels, the Cocteaus remained with 4AD and end of 1982 saw the release of the EP Lullabies, closely followed by the single "Peppermint Pig" in early 1983 and a brief tour supporting OMD. With Will's departure from the band in 1983, Liz and Robin kept up the momentum, returning to the studios to record the highly improvised second LP, Head Over Heels. Topping the indie charts, this 'effervescent whirligig of abstract grandeur', as one journalist described the album, saw them begin to ditch the spikiness of Garlands, as Guthrie developed a lush cascading guitar technique, creating a rich texture and otherworldly feel. A prime example was the anthemic finale "Musette and Drums", which gradually built layer upon layer of guitars, drums and vocals, to create an enveloping soundscape and a spirit of resolution which would run through final tracks on all future LPs.

During this period the 4AD label project This Mortal Coil made the album It'll End In Tears, featuring Liz and Robin's version of an old Tim Buckley track, "Song to the Siren". Released as a single, it remained in the indie chart for over a year. Simon Raymonde also contributed to track as a Cocteau Twin......

It was in 1984, the Cocteaus became a trio again, as ex-Drowning Craze member Simon Raymonde joined on bass, and they enjoyed their first entry into the national singles chart, with "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" reaching #29 This included the Spangle Maker. The third album, Treasure (1984), peaked at #28 and sounded like nothing anyone had yet heard. This was music not about the communication of meaning, but the creation of beautiful and disquieting emotional abstractions - drawing on arcane and often incomprehensible old Scots vocabulary, Liz used her voice primarily as another musical instrument. From this point on, music journalists found it impossible to describe the band's work without resorting to the word 'ethereal'. 1985 saw the beginning of a prolific two-year period, with the production of two more albums, their first US release (the compilation The Pink Opaque) and four EPs. During 1986, as Simon spent time arranging and composing tracks for This Mortal Coil's Filigree and Shadow, while Liz and Robin busied themselves with the fourth Cocteau LP, the acoustic Victorialand. In the previous year, all three Twins had collaborated with American minimalist composer Harold Budd for a TV documentary, but as funds for the film dried up, the music was released in 1986 as the non-Cocteau album The Moon and the Melodies. Though contrasting sharply in commercial success - Victorialand reached #10 in the national charts while The Moon stayed in the indies - both albums were viewed, in the press, as marking a move towards 'New Age' music. However, the wall-of-sound Love's Easy Tears EP (1986), their last release for two years, once again blasted apart the pigeonholes. 'When you die, and then open your eyes, if there isn't music something like this playing in the distance, you're probably on your way to the wrong place' - such were the quotes that greeted the long-awaited Blue Bell Knoll (1988). As with Head Over Heels there were the impressionistic layers of guitar, voice and bass, but the music was much cleaner and more energetic, Liz favouring the higher end of her vocal range for lyrics comprised totally of neologisms in a nursery ryhme way. In 1989 the band opened their new London recording studio, September Sound, the fruits of which - the single "Iceblink Luck" and LP Heaven or Las Vegas - were finally presented towards the end of 1990. Entering the charts at #7, the album was full of tracks that were structured more like conventional songs than their previous work and easier to translate into live performance, as shown in the subsequent international tour, for which guitarists Mitsuo Tate and Ben Blakeman were added. Splitting with 4AD in mid 1991, The Cocteaus signed a new deal with Mercury's interesting-artist division, Fontana, in 1992, but Liz was experiencing some vocal problems and it was a year before an album finally emerged. On Four-Calendar Cafe, for the first time, the guitars sounded like guitars and the words sounded like words - Guthrie had come to feel that the layers and effects of the earlier records had made their music too claustrophobic, and so stripped them to a minimum. Fans of the oblique and hazy Cocteau style were disappointed, but the album nonetheless reached #13 in the UK this era also saw the release of 3 EPs and 1 promo to knowledge, Evangeline EPjust before the album and Bluebeard Ep just after it. Summerhead, track 9 on Four-Calendar Cafe was released as a 1 track promotional CD. Also in December of 1993, the Twins created a EP of 2 Christmas covers, Winter Wonderland & Frosty The Snowman. It was a intresting venture as the EP, Snow was deleted from being made on the exact same day it was released making it very unique and rare but it pleased the fans wishing the Happy Christmas on the back cover. In 1994 the Cocteaus with Mistuo Tate & Ben Blakeman and two other crew members playing Drums & percussion completed the Four-Calendar Cafe tour

Attempts to predict the band's musical direction were again confounded with the 1995 release of two EPs - the classical Twinlights and the ambient Otherness (Liz's previous venture into the ambient scene can be heard on the Future Sound of London's "Lifeforms" single, from 1994). But the subsequent Milk and Kisses (1996) LP returned to familiar ground, prompting some journalists to suggest that stagnation had set in. For the Cocteaus, though, innovation has always been essentially the by-product of fidelity to their own vision, which for well over a decade has seen them mining a rich seam of their own invention, sounding ever the same but ever different. But mid 1997 saw the end of the Cocteau Twins after there release of 4 EPs from Milk & Kisses, Tishbite 1&2, Violaine 1&2 & two compilation apearences on Volume 15 & 17 with Circling Girl (Violaine 2) & an new song written by the Cocteaus for Cantonese Pop Star, Faye Wong who appears as a duet on the Asian version of Milk & Kisses track 2, Serpentskirt. The song originally exclusive for Faye, Touch Upon Touch which has been the last & most recent released Cocteau Twins Track until the present day.

There are future plans for the release of a Greatest Hits album and possibly a Final LP which was shelved after they dis-banded. Since then Simon Raymonde has became solo releasing his debut album, Blame Some One Else and a single from it. They have both been releasd on the NEW-To-Be Cocteau Twins independant label, BELLA Union, but the Cocteau Twins didn't make it that far. The Record label is owned & mangaged by Simon Raymonde & Robin Guthrie. They have now released a few more titles by The Dirty Three & Nanaco, oh and Sneakster. They currently are the Twin's Record label, owning copyrights on all the titles from 1982-1998 even though the Cocteaus have all went their sepperate way.

Elizabeth Fraser has now done alot of work on the Melankolic/Virgin Label with Massie Attack & Craig Armstrong. She has also worked with Michael Kamen on the Winter Guest Original Soundtrack but is currently on a fixed tour with Massive Attack. Simon has now released the Promo Video to accompany the album and can be bought from BELLA Union now. No one has really heard from Robin Guthrie thought he was last heard doing re-mixes on Mandelay's 1st single , Flowers Bloom.
Liz Fraser is currently working on a Debut Solo Album of her own..... it promises to be a real treat, and is due to be released in the year 2001, a bit of a while to wait from now but something to look forward to.

The BBC Sessions were released in October of 1999. blah blah

 

- 29-09-98