“8 Songs That Sample Cocteau Twins, From Arca to The Weeknd”

• By Philip Sherburne
• Pitchfork
• 6-Jul 2016

As influential as the OG 4AD band has become, few have attempted to sample Cocteau Twins. Here’s a brief survey of those who have.

Six minutes into Arca’s new release Entrañas, a familiar sound cuts through the din with the force of the sky ripping open. Until that point, the Venezuelan musician had teased us with a miasmatic mix of ambient chords, orgasmic groans, laser zaps, mewling cats, and the same soft-spoken gender evisceration from the 1993 film The Cement Garden that Madonna excerpted on “What It Feels Like For a Girl.” But what happens next is a different sort of déjà vu. Over pummeling industrial noise, a shimmering riff flashes up and falls silent, again and again. If you’re like me, you may find yourself desperately casting about to place it. Could it be Autechre? Aphex Twin? Then Liz Fraser’s voice swoops in and it all comes rushing back: It’s Cocteau Twins’ “Beatrix,” a dizzyingly gorgeous song from their 1984 album Treasure.

It’s a startling reference, if only because Cocteau Twins’ ethereal qualities stand starkly at odds with Arca’s preference for bloody fists and broken glass. But it also makes a certain kind of sense: Fraser’s ululating delivery helped pave the way for the otherworldly hiccup and chirp of Björk, one of Arca’s close collaborators. And the links run deeper than that, too. As wispy as Cocteau Twins could be—think of their burbling, spa-friendly 1986 collaboration with the pianist Harold Budd, The Moon and the Melodies—an undercurrent of unease runs through their work, especially albums like Garlands, Head Over Heels, and Treasure. Soaked in reverb and dissonance, Cocteau Twins’ early records conjured a terrible kind of beauty, a blood-curdling view of the sublime.

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