Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Cocteau Twins
The Spangle Maker EP
(4AD, 1984)
MOJO Dream Pop CD inspires recourse to these scintillating reveries.
The Cocteaux track on MOJO's current cover-mount CD (Bluebeard, since you ask) sent me spinning into their back catalogue - felled again by its uniqueness, stung again by the mockery due those who introduced fey pop into the Arrow Vale High School Sixth Form cassette deck in the mid-'80s. It was worth it, though. For all the strengths of their opening brace of albums (gnarly Garlands, 1982; plangent Head Over Heels, 1984) this was the alchemical moment in the group's catalogue, the point where the Grangemouth axis of ululating vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and multi-layering guitarist Robin Guthrie (augmented for the first time by Simon "Bella Union" Raymonde on bass) paid off their debt to Siouxsie & The Banshees and embarked on a new stage of their voyage, into an unmoored post-punk unpop that was simultaneously unambient and unclassical. The commonest misapprehension - of the Cocteau Twins as pedlars of pixie frou-frou nostrums - is exposed by the dark and haunted Spangle Maker, with lyrics that take some untangling but are not beyond our ken: "Singing, broke and winded, broke and winded!" wails Fraser, gorgeously wracked. This is also the home of the superior, extended Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops, perhaps the apotheosis of Fraser's "instrument" - now brushing the stratosphere, now hiccupping bubbles of gold. This is Dream Pop, certainly; but our dreams are rarely benign, and the Cocteau Twins would not be a group to cherish without the pools of sadness and fear that collect between their distillations of joy. Singing, broke and winded, but still singing.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 25/02/2010
Further Listening
Cocteau Twins – Treasure (4AD, 1984)
Butterfy Child – Onomatopoeia (Rough Trade, 1993)
Lush – Scar (4AD, 1989)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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What a beautiful piece written Danny. I arrived in Deland, Florida in 1986 from Sint Maarten to live with my mom and sister, to start high school there. I only read about CT in the UK magazines I collected (no internet then) and wanted to find out what this dreamy and other-wordly songs sounded like. So I went to the record store and bought the only thing they had, it was The Pink Opaque. My God! What a revelation that was!! To be listening to Millimillenary, The Spangle Maker, Lorelei and Musette and Drums in a sun soaked atmosphere threw my whole idea of music in dissarray! I subsequently bought everything they ever produced and drowned in the beauty of Liz' voice. My sister passed away in 1987, which was and still is a heartbreaking experience, and Victorialand helped me through my pain a bit. I'm now living in Amsterdam and realize that most of the music that has filled my life (I'm the only guy at work who buys cd's instead of downloading) has been influenced by the Cocteaux. Right now my collection includes much of the Kompakt label, Robin Guthrie and Ulirch Schnauss. There's much more in my collection which would take up too much space here, but I wanted to thank you for bringing the Cocteaux to the forefront here!
Paul
Posted by Paul Snijders at 10:38 PM GMT 02/03/2010 Report Abuse
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Lovely stuff!
Posted by Rob at 3:04 PM GMT 03/03/2010 Report Abuse
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Lovely stuff
Posted by Rob at 3:08 PM GMT 03/03/2010 Report Abuse
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