that 'song to the siren' performance is awesome!
i did watch the other guy's video of her doing 'pearly-dewdrops drops' from the same set tho and yeah her voice is barely audible on the chorus
― half-worm inchworm tapeworm (donna rouge), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 00:15 (eleven years ago) link
the guy's other video*
Glad you all had such a good time. Maybe just the sound in Bath was that bad, Liz' nerves affected her performance, etc etc.
― passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 05:09 (eleven years ago) link
Somebody on DiS saying that the sound was better last night than on Monday, so maybe Bath was just the first step on an evolving route. Wish I'd gone to one of the London shows now.
― passive-aggressive display name (aldo), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 09:39 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/07/elizabeth-fraser-review?newsfeed=true
― piscesx, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 10:09 (eleven years ago) link
I feel oddly conflicted watching that "siren" youtube clip. She loooks like someone's granny in that outfit, but I remind myself she's always dressed in an endearingly oldfashioned way so I cant o_0 about it now.
I see aldo's point now though; she really isnt making any attempt at all to belt a note, going purely off that clip (not that this song was ever one where that was the case). It isnt disappointing: the frippertronic guitar was gorgeous, and it was an arrangement I really liked! But she really wasn't a powerhouse like she used to be. I will be fair though, its been a very very long time since she last performed and cut her a break, people get older etc.
Even for her recent milder singing that was very subduded. Curious.
― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 10:21 (eleven years ago) link
Watching that other guy's clips, the new songs are way better for her new singing. Its like David Sylvians recenter stuff. I always said those two should work together.
― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 10:35 (eleven years ago) link
ugh the Athol Brose one tho. Backing singers! Pipe down!
― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 10:42 (eleven years ago) link
The mix from my seat was just right wrt the backing singers; they were barely noticeable and were only shading and echoing and augmenting. I did think at the time, if Kate Bush hasn't toured for 30 years because (amongst many other reasons) her studio vocal arrangements were too complex to reproduce live, then here's a solution. I was pretty alarmed at the idea of backing vocalists (when we've all come to hear The Voice) but it totally made sense.
Yeah, one or two Cocteaus songs were pretty pedestrian, but it was all about the new stuff, which is so much richer that anything she's put her name to since about 1988 and, at the same, really not Cocteau-like at all.
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:09 (eleven years ago) link
I think the issue might be what you touched on, with her its about The Voice - regardless of the music vehicle - and that shouldnt remain the case, really. I did really like those new arrangements! I was reminded of Sylvian and Dolphin Bros and even Porcupine Tree, a bit.
― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:13 (eleven years ago) link
I am now pondering her workign with King Crimson, and that way madness probably lies.
― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:18 (eleven years ago) link
that song to the siren is amazing. performance was very david sylvian, band-wise. I think I would have died at this gig.
― akm, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 22:03 (eleven years ago) link
That performance was like watching Dame Judi Dench Goes Ambient. Cathartic Liz Fraser always thrills me. Precious Liz Fraser? Sort of bores me.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 9 August 2012 04:12 (eleven years ago) link
I don't know - it was both precious and cathartic at the same time? I've seen Lost Highway too many times so a certain Lynchian trippiness came into it for me as well, more or less uninvited :) Also think youtube doesn't quite do it justice...
― lynshrooom, Thursday, 9 August 2012 09:50 (eleven years ago) link
Dame Judi Dench Goes Ambient
i would buy ten copies of this record
― half-worm inchworm tapeworm (donna rouge), Thursday, 9 August 2012 17:49 (eleven years ago) link
dame can dance
― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Thursday, 9 August 2012 19:26 (eleven years ago) link
Ain't that a smack in the calfskin.
― Andy K, Thursday, 9 August 2012 19:28 (eleven years ago) link
i wonder why she never played live since; i wonder if she read this thread.
― piscesx, Sunday, 31 May 2015 02:54 (eight years ago) link
Haha, welcome back, Hitler reacts meme! This is a good one:
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2015/09/return_of_the_d.html
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 12 September 2015 16:00 (eight years ago) link
1987 looks like a big blank space in the history of the band, surprising how heavy their output was in the preceding years. What were they doing in that year? (Besides a great deal of coke in the case of poor Robin Guthrie.) Did they tour actively in 1987 even if they weren't putting anything out for nearly a two-year period?
― Melomane, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 18:06 (four years ago) link
They bought a unit in a warehouse in North Acton and built their own studio, roping in Dif Juz to do the plastering :) I think they just spent a chunk of '87 doing that.
Crushed was on Lonely As An Eyesore in '87, but I think that dates from the Love's Easy Tears sessions.
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 18:34 (four years ago) link
they were just really into Inspector Morse that year
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Wednesday, 15 April 2020 18:47 (four years ago) link
Guthrie was doing some producing that year:The Gun Club. AR Kane.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 15 April 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
They didn't tour for 3-4 years in the late 80s.
While I'm here... here's 50 odd Cocteau Twins gigs!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVLv8TgfCZGTMigjTfEiBxROjN8CT_Rx1
― Non, je ned raggette rien (onimo), Wednesday, 15 April 2020 21:12 (four years ago) link
Holy shit, thanks
― J. Sam, Thursday, 16 April 2020 00:19 (four years ago) link
This is accurate.
Created a new TikTok challenge: Cocteau Twins sing-a-long pic.twitter.com/mWSgm0MvLC— rebekah entralgo fernández (@rebekahentralgo) July 30, 2020
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 July 2020 02:47 (three years ago) link
That’s great.
― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 31 July 2020 14:18 (three years ago) link
I have been enjoying that tweet all morning
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Friday, 31 July 2020 14:42 (three years ago) link
aw I thought there'd be more examples
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, 31 July 2020 16:26 (three years ago) link
sugar hiccup is an amazing song, even though she sings "sugar hitler" throughout the song. singing "hiccup" over and over with heavy reverb is like pinching the tip of your tongue with your fingers and saying "am i a huge apple?"
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 17:00 (three years ago) link
despite that, i have been on an amazing cocteau twins ride this year. 2020 - covid19 and cocteau twins, is how i will remember it
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 17:02 (three years ago) link
yeah she really lays into that vocal, it's joyous
― assert (MatthewK), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:47 (three years ago) link
describe this ride, Karl? Have you been thru the whole discography (incl 4CC?!)? Focused on a particular album? Live cuts, b-sides, videos, interviews, what? I'm curious. I'm overdue for an immersion myself.
― rip van wanko, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:52 (three years ago) link
This is the first I've seen that TikTok, and lo, a new d/n.
― I want to luhbahguh babum gum (Leee), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 22:50 (three years ago) link
I gotta shout out the balmy stretch on side two of Blue Bell Knoll when they go bossanova for two songs (Suckling the Mender -> Spooning Good Singing Gum). Utter bliss
― J. Sam, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 23:17 (three years ago) link
one of my fav Liz vocal moments is in the third line of “pearly dewdrops drops” where she does this high pitched almost-scream for a single note.. reliably spine-tingling
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 23:18 (three years ago) link
xp rip van winko
very much unstructured, and not a very deep dive at all. i'm a total rookie, which is my favorite thing to be with music - a rookie is still at the beginning of it all.
general journey so far: 2000s-2016ish - always heard cocteau twins were really cool, i knew generally who they were, but every time i listened to them it was probably a mp3 played on a laptop, rarely a real speaker system, generally only a song or two at a time. i mentally categorized them as "had to be there"
2017-19 - slow awakening, particularly with Heaven or Las Vegas (the album). a few songs struck me, and i started to listen to it every couple months, instead of every few years. we also ad a comp (stars and topsoil) that my partner would play on occasion.
unidentified time, 2019/20 - 420 unlock, "Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires". in a certain mood i would write way tf too much about the experience of loving that song for the first time. now it's not even my favorite on the album. holy shit
2020 - a couple months of continued Heaven or Las Vegas worship - i am a slow listener. but then i finally decided to venture out to the other stuff. for a brief moment, i was of the opinion that Garlands was the greatest album of all time. but it turned out that i just really liked "wax and wane" way too much. still, it was a gamechanger song for me because i started hearing them in a new way. there are all these tenuous connections in that era (to me at least) between punk and post punk and goth and 4AD and the like, sometimes it's hard to connect the dots. the Cocteau Twins of "wax and wane" still sound gloriously like the way they sound in their late 80s version; it was almost like holding up the same object in a different light and getting a sense of its weight.
victorialand is where i started getting obsessed, though. i mean...there's pretty much no bass. but it doesn't sound tinny, it sounds light. it's hallucinatory in stretches. i've listened to it a million times and it's hard for me to even mention specific songs because they all just flow together. i'm not sure i've ever heard it without listening to the whole thing.
i was also in a harold budd-mode earlier this year so of course i gave a good amount of time to The Moon and the Melodies.
treasure is my current obsession. i am astounded by how much they own their sound. i can immediately recognize them now, it's unmissable, despite there being a million bands that try to do the same thing.
i haven't even really listened to blue bell knoll that much, yet. or the post heaven or las vegas stuff. plenty of time. <3
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 01:58 (three years ago) link
i keep attempting a complete catalog listen, chronologically, and then i get stuck in treasure and just play it over and over
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:02 (three years ago) link
on the other hand,
Blue Bell Knoll [Capitol, 1988]Harold Budd records in their studio. The Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir records on their label. I understand that they're more foolish than either (not naive, not after six years), and that they've been known to milk momentary momentum out of electric guitars, but the affinities are there--these faeries are in the aura business. So what are they doing on the alternative rock charts? Ever hear the one about being so open-minded that when you lay down to sleep your brains fall out? C+
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:15 (three years ago) link
completely fuck that guy foreverhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_9IsLaK4yo
― brimstead, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:23 (three years ago) link
BBK is probably still my favorite and I don't understand Xgau's criticism at all (I often don't)
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:25 (three years ago) link
Victorialand is mid-wreckingly great, "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow" is every comfort I ever needed. I'd advise you to spend more time with Garlands, title track is fantastic, "Shallow Then Halo" astonishing, "Grail Overfloweth" the bleak heaven all us Goths wanted back in the day. Blue Bell Knoll is more intricate but similarly lush as HOLV. And call me when you pop the lid on Love's Easy Tears, the zenith of everything great about them.A big realisation for me a few years back was that I love Beach House because they sound so much like CT, no coincidence that they're on Bella Union I guess.
― assert (MatthewK), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:26 (three years ago) link
haha, was just thinking about beach house and CT! for some reason, reading that christgau thing made me think "would he hate something like beach house today?"
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:34 (three years ago) link
i'm not a total noob with blue bell knoll (i was actually listening to 'the itchy glowbo bow' just as brimstead posted it!), i just have only listened to it maybe 5 times at this point. looking forward to #500
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:35 (three years ago) link
just to pin a soon to be dated covid-19 take on the cocteau twins, tbh i have spent a lot of 2020 wandering around my house with noise canceling headphones, in a daze, working during work hours or in the evening, losing myself in an album in the middle of the night on the couch or in the middle of a workday, working from home. cocteau twins have been a perfect soundtrack to whatever this year has been for me.
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:37 (three years ago) link
Karl ya gotta give time to the astonishing singles as well, handily compiled on Lullabies To Violaine
― sleeve, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:38 (three years ago) link
i mean, "suckling the mender"? how is this even real? i love that a real band laid this to tape
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:38 (three years ago) link
xp oh nice, i see it's got sugar hitler! ;)
are their singles generally separate from the albums?
― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:39 (three years ago) link
most of those, yes
― sleeve, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 02:39 (three years ago) link