Cocteau Twins : Classic or Dud

I was at RFH last night. First things first, I am a mate of aldo's irl and I genuinely love him like a brother. And like all good brother relationships it means you can disagree and in this case he is wrong, with a few valid points.

He is correct about the sound level - I, too,,would have preferred it louder. He is also correct about Donimo, which was the only major disappointment for me. I think Trayce is correct here - this wasn't a Cocteau's reunion and shouldnt be approached as such but Donimo had lost most of its dynamism and had nothing to replace it. Where as Pearly Dewdrop became something else entirely. The joy was replaced by a gorgeous wistfulness. This was Liz saying 'we can't go back and that is sad, but what we have now can be good if different'. This was intelligent nostalgia and, yes, it was probably partly driven by Liz's vocal frailties, but was nevertheless intensely moving.

The new stuff was quite simply beautiful. I can see the 'real world' comparison but I was thinking more eno ambient than Peter Gabriel. And it melded beautifully into the reworked Cocteau's songs. If this stuff ever comes out on a Cd I will be first in the queue.

A word about the backing singers; they were stunning. Gorgeous voices taking the parts Liz couldn't, mainly not because of failings In her voice, but because of the vocal arrangements which were actually quite close to the recordings on most of the Cocteau's part of the set. The musicians were excellent, the sound was astoundingly clean and the 'back projections' simple and effective. A guest appearance by Steve Hackett was also welcome. Say what you like about him, that man can sure play a guitar.

Siren. I am not sure if the You Tube gets across how emotional this was. Yes, it was virtually a different song but once you get over that this reworking was magical. Actually, the major shock was that Liz sang the words correctly!

I said to Aldo last night that it was in my top ten gigs ever. That is hyperbole, but it was tremendous, moving and unforgettable. And if I could get tickets for tonight I would!

After you said that I was half expecting to say "wow, she didn't sound like that on Saturday", but I genuinely think the vocal performance there is awful. Having admitted that Cocteaus baggage coloured my opinions, I'd be tempted to admit the same baggage is colouring other people's in the other direction. From a level playing field and without the LiZ effect I think we'd all be more critical.

It does sound like a lot of the sound issues were fixed in a decent room though. And we didn't get Steve Hackett in Bath.

yeah that clip is amazing imo. but then i didnt pay to see it. looks like The Graun will be doing a rave as Alexis P was saying he was blown away.

Not to rain on any parades, but live Cocteau Twins, at least mid-tour during their later era (New Orleans '91 and Houston '94), were a very iffy proposition. Raymonde and the hired help rather professional, Guthrie chewing gum and looking at the ductwork, and Fraser doing dolphin noise improvisations that only occasionally converged on the tune. It meandered, a lot, without the measured crescendos that must have been constructed from dozens of studio takes and a lot of meth. This live performance from the same tour is a good deal better than the shows I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4arnK6ZFck

After you said that I was half expecting to say "wow, she didn't sound like that on Saturday", but I genuinely think the vocal performance there is awful. Having admitted that Cocteaus baggage coloured my opinions, I'd be tempted to admit the same baggage is colouring other people's in the other direction. From a level playing field and without the LiZ effect I think we'd all be more critical.

I've always appreciated the Cocteaus but have never been a massive fan/follower; in fact, I just started getting Cocteaus albums beyond Milk and Kisses 3 years ago. That performance was... okay? It was very tender and deliberate and obviously meant a lot to the crowd but "Song of the Siren" is a song that I liked a lot more when Messiah sampled it so it never had major emotional impact for me; this rendition basically hit me the same way as the original.

I think she did what she set out to do, and that thing is something that I only ever sporadically get on board with, so I guess in a totally blase way I'm siding with aero here.

I was there tonight and I'm with guilty_boksen. The new material was really extraordinary. I was thinking... Bill Nelson on "Gone To Earth", Philip Glass sopranos (the BVs)... and, wow, Liz (maybe not Robin) is the one with the melodic gift. The mix was great, she sounded terrific and they could have ditched the Cocteaus material and I'd still have loved it.

^^ What he said. Loved how this line-up reclaimed the Cocteaus from being merely proto-shoegazers, and instead suggested an altogether richer, stranger avant-pop act - the missing link between Another Green World and Bitte Orca. Loved the Fripptastic guitarist. Loved the pound-shop Eno guy on keys. Loved the new material, which seemed oddly redolent of Billy Mackenzie and Barry Adamson. All in all probably the best gig I've seen in the last five years. Strangely grateful to Aldo for making the sheer excellence of it all such a glorious surprise.

Invoking Billy M is good enough for me!

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

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.

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/07/elizabeth-fraser-review?newsfeed=true

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.

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.

ugh the Athol Brose one tho. Backing singers! Pipe down!

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.

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.

I am now pondering her workign with King Crimson, and that way madness probably lies.

that song to the siren is amazing. performance was very david sylvian, band-wise. I think I would have died at this gig.

That performance was like watching Dame Judi Dench Goes Ambient. Cathartic Liz Fraser always thrills me. Precious Liz Fraser? Sort of bores me.

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...

Dame Judi Dench Goes Ambient

i would buy ten copies of this record

dame can dance

Ain't that a smack in the calfskin.

i wonder why she never played live since; i wonder if she read this thread.

Haha, welcome back, Hitler reacts meme! This is a good one:

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2015/09/return_of_the_d.html

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?

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.

they were just really into Inspector Morse that year

Guthrie was doing some producing that year:The Gun Club. AR Kane.

Guthrie was doing some producing that year:The Gun Club. AR Kane.

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

Holy shit, thanks

This is accurate.

Created a new TikTok challenge: Cocteau Twins sing-a-long pic.twitter.com/mWSgm0MvLC

— rebekah entralgo fernández (@rebekahentralgo) July 30, 2020

That’s great.

I have been enjoying that tweet all morning

aw I thought there'd be more examples

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?"

despite that, i have been on an amazing cocteau twins ride this year. 2020 - covid19 and cocteau twins, is how i will remember it

yeah she really lays into that vocal, it's joyous

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.

This is the first I've seen that TikTok, and lo, a new d/n.

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

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

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

i keep attempting a complete catalog listen, chronologically, and then i get stuck in treasure and just play it over and over

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+

completely fuck that guy forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_9IsLaK4yo

BBK is probably still my favorite and I don't understand Xgau's criticism at all (I often don't)