“Ghostly traces”
- By Paul du Noyer
- NME/New Musical Express
- 3-Nov 1984
Post-This Mortal Coil, the Cocteaus deliver a wafting miracle.
Oh sure, the music’s alright—but look at the song titles! Side One: “Ivo”, “Lorelei”, “Beatrix”, “Persephone”, “Pandora”. Side Two: “Amelia”, “Aloysius”, “Cicely”, “Otterley”, “Donimo”. It sounds like the whole of Hampstead breaking out in an orgy of kitchen-christening.
There is indeed an air of tweeness about these Cocteau Twins, which would be cloying except that their music can rise above it, sometimes to realms of genuine magnificence. Given the delicate precision of their sound, and the extraordinary qualities of Elizabeth Fraser’s singing, they get away with things. What could seem sickly and precious in the hands of lesser practitioners is here redeemed by simple beauty. An innocent magic.
It’s taken me three albums to feel sure on this point. Treasure is surely their best collection yet: it’s softer, more vague than before, but somehow even closer to the purity at their core. Where Garlands was a tentative reconaissance of ‘82’s rocky landscape, heavily Banshee-shadowed, and Head Over Heels showed a group on the verge of self-discovery, this third LP is a process completed. The Cocteau Twins have never sounded less like anyone else. If I’m reminded of anyone it’s the nicer bits of Kate Bush. You may have your own idea as to what the nicest bits of Kate Bush are, but for me it’s a certain way of woven melody, a feminine spell that’s suggestively mystical and, strangely, peculiarly English. (Except, of course, the Cocteau Twins are actually Scottish, which nixes any potential Grand Theory.)
What you’ve got on these songs is, mostly, that stately-slow processional beat, Robin Guthrie’s chiming guitar, Liz’s impenetrable, abstract lyrics. It’s the old voice-as-instrument touch, albeit an exceptionally evocative one. And the sleeve art is elegant and mysterious as ever: the photos are like those competitions you sometimes see, where they show you a close-up of, say, a shirt button and you’ve got to guess it. A microchip? Or a caterpillar’s head? What fun!
Yes, it’s all a bit hippy-drippy. And yes, it is real student music, destined to waft along hall-of-residence corridors from Keele to Kent-at-Canterbury. No, there’s nothing here that’s quite as glorious as “Song to the Siren” (performed by the Cocteaus in their part-time guise of This Mortal Coil), nor anything so instant as that recent single “Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops.”
But it’s a pretty thing, this Treasure. For all its enchanted-garden Laura Ashley-ness, there’s something more than most music does now. Like a sepia-tinted Victorian print of someplace you know today. I like those ghostly traces. ▣
