Cocteau Twins

"Twinlights"


After a hiatus of a little over a year, the Cocteau Twins release what they call an experimental EP and expect us to go out and pay for their free time. Well, we whole-heartedly recommend that you do just that! The Cocteau Twins recorded "Twinlights" with a four-piece string section and features three new songs, "Rilkean Heart," "Golden Vein," "Half-Gifts," and an acoustic version of "Pink Orange Red."

Robin Guthrie recalls what happened while recording the Cocteau Twins' last album "Four Calendar Cafe" and how that lead to "Twinlights": "When we finally got 'round to recording it, I was amazed none of us had actually committed suicide, killed each other, and fired everyone around us. It was an intense period after we left 4AD, and the following months were fairly grim, but rather than try and sort it out, we'd just get fucked up!... Well, we started talking to each other a bit more."

"That was the big development," continues Liz. "We'd never really talked before. But now, we're not afraid to say things for fear that we'll laugh each other out of the room. It's a completely new feeling."

The result of this "new feeling" between the members of the Cocteau Twins are two EPs and a new album. "Twinlights" is the first of the EPs. It is a very lovely acoustic record that, while retaining much of what is so familiar (and even standard) in the 'Twins, it clearly delivers a new edge of music.

The second EP, "Otherness" is yet to be released and will bear a more ambient quality. It's interesting that bands that are so strongly influenced by the Cocteau Twins (Future Sound of London and Seefeel) are now collaborating with them. Mark Clifford of Seefeel joins in on "Otherness" which features two CT remakes ("Feet Like Fins" and "Cherry Colored Funk") and two new songs ("Seekers Who Are Lovers" and "Violane").

Their full-length will be entitled "Milk and Kisses" and will be released early 1996. No more information is really available about that album, except to say that the Cocteau Twins want to emphasize that the EPs they are releasing now are simply experimental and (as Simon notes) that "it quite obviously isn't" the direction the band is heading. So that can leave us to expect more work along the lines of "Heaven or Las Vegas" and "Four Calendar Cafe" on "Milk and Kisses," namely, more understandable lyrics from Liz, more guitars from Robin and Simon, and probably more drums. We'll post some sound samples from that album as soon as we have them.

Jeff Jolley
© 1995, Rational Alternative Digital
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