Five Reasons the Music of the Cocteau Twins Sounds So Otherworldly

My favorite band has been the Cocteau Twins for more years than I care to admit. This Scottish group had a changing roster throughout their albums but the two consistent members were vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and songwriter/composer Robin Guthrie, who were a couple for a certain period of years within the band’s lifetime. According to his bio notes on Cocteautwins.com, “Throughout the band’s history, (Guthrie) was a principal songwriter, playing guitar, bass, keyboard, and handling most of the programming and effects.” Fraser is credited as the band’s lyricist. One wants to speculate that generally she also composed the vocal melodies which inhabit Guthrie’s lush soundscapes, and this feels intuitively correct, but I have not seen verification in print or in interviews.

I remember having a private discussion with a musician who had met them, who stated that their working method (relative to the time he had known them) was that often they entered the studio at different times, and that Fraser might lay down her vocals in the middle of the night after having worked with a soundspace sans vocal melody which Robin had created alone or in collaboration with another band member such as Simon Raymonde. This guess at compositional division also seems to make sense if one looks at the music Guthrie crafted post-Cocteau Twins. He continues to write strong ambient music in which one sometimes likes to imagine Fraser’s vocals suddenly manifesting in new vocal melodies. This musician had met them after they had…