Chart entered : 28 April 1984
Chart peak : 29
Number of hits : 13 ( Additionally , This Mortal Coil's hit "Song To The Siren" features only The Cocteau Twins )
By one placing this lot take over from Tom Petty's crew as the most "cult" artists we've yet seen as they never surpassed this one's chart performance. I know some people - hello Mr Carlin- think they're the bees' knees but I've always struggled to appreciate them.
The Cocteau Twins were formed by two Scots Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie in 1979 and named themselves after a song by Johnny and the Self-Abusers ( the nascent Simple Minds ). Robin worked for BP , the major employer in their home town of Grangemouth but also did some DJ-ing at a hotel, perplexing the punters with choices like The Birthday Party. One girl seemed to dig it though and she was asked to join the band ; this was Liz Fraser . She sang, Robin played guitar , Heggie played bass and a drum machine supplied the beats. They were signed by Ivo Watts-Russell's 4AD label in 1981 and released their debut LP ( no singles ) "Garlands" in June 1982
"Garlands " is a slab of dense Goth-rock with echoes of The Cure and Joy Division but most of all Siouxsie and the Banshees with a better singer. Unlike all those influences the Twins' sound was tethered by the lack of a dexterous human drummer and taken as a whole the album is a bit of a grind sorely lacking any melody or much variation in tempo to temper the billowing gloom created by the throbbing bass and Liz's icy wail. Compared to future releases the lyrics are relatively coherent and provide a steady stream of poetic imagery of pain, death and religious confusion. It only made the independent charts but found favour with both the night time DJs, Peel and Jensen.
Their second release was the "Lullabies" EP a few months later which injects a little more rock dynamism into its three new tracks but is otherwise just as forbidding as the album.
In April 1983 they released the single "Peppermint Pig" with ex-Associate producer Alan Rankine. It's a driving rock track with a great bass line and the hint of a tune amidst the guitar squall and impenetrable lyrics but strangely the band chose to disown it and never worked with an outside producer again. After a short tour that spring Heggie chose to leave the band.
Thus their second LP "Head Over Heels" was recorded as a duo with Robin shouldering the bass duties as well. Heggie's departure immediately seemed like a plus with the duo unleashing a much more powerful, genuinely Gothic sound. Robin's multi-layered guitars, Liz's vocals getting more domineering as her diction got murkier and an increasing melodic sensibility carved their own space in indiedom. Not all of it works for me; some of the songs remain dirge-y but "When Mama Was Moth " and "In Our Angelhood" are outstanding and "Sugar Hiccup" has what you would call a pop hook in its chorus. As well as topping the indie charts the album made number 51 in the main chart in the autumn of 1983. An extended version of "Sugar Hiccup" was the lead track on an EP released shortly afterwards called "Sunburst and Snowblind" which bubbled under the Top 75.
Shortly before the album's release Liz and Robin had been approached by Watts-Russell to record a B-side for a single he was going to put out under the name This Mortal Coil, a re-recording of the Modern English song "Sixteen Days" which they had declined to revisit. The duo recorded a sepulchral version of Tim Buckley's Song To The Siren" which so pleased Watts-Russell he made it the A-side. With a fair amount of radio play it reached 66 in the charts in October 1983 . As only Liz and Robin featured on the A-side I should perhaps have counted that as their first hit. During the sessions the band met Simon Raymonde , son of Ivor, a top arranger in the sixties ( Then Play Long incessantly hammered home this connection ) and not long afterwards invited him to join the band as bassist.
"Pearly Dewdrops Drops " was available as either a 7 inch single or a 12 inch EP with an extra track "The Spangle Maker " ( a bit too close to Joy Division's Atmosphere for me ) which was apparently the lead track posing a challenge for Gallup presuming that sales of the two were amalgamated in determining its chart position. It's been listed just as "Pearly Dewdrops Drop". It's a bit disappointing after "Head Over Heels " , a slow drone with Simon's Peter Hook bass line buzzing underneath Robin's chiming riff and Liz intoning a repetitive mantra with occasional whoops. The music slowly builds in intensity as the record progresses but there's no real climax. When it got into the charts I looked forward to seeing the lyrics in Smash Hits but none were forthcoming; the generally accepted internet version which seems to be about someone called Roddy buying sweets is surely nonsense.
You can add me as a fan - but I do understand why many others can't get their appeal. It's sort of weird, as I'm someone who 99% of the time places great stock in lyrical content, and obviously Fraser is singing (essentially) nonsense most of the time.
ReplyDeleteBut - I do have a huge spot for weird guitar effects and dreamy soundscapes. As for this song, I think Hooky would struggle to copy the bassline! But Raymonde would appear to be going for that vibe. I do like it a lot, it was my introduction to them, but they'd go on to do a lot better.