Cocteau Twins - Bluebeard.

Here's the last of my Cocteau Twins posts. Seemingly bright, and with a new sense of clarity, the actual story is much, much darker.

"Are you the right man for me?
Are you safe? Are you my friend?
Or are you toxic for me?
Will you mistreat me or betray my confidence?"

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Cocteau Twins - Tishbite

Yet another CT double pack from the later period. Still wonderful. Still sounding great.

Tishbite is a word used in the Bible to refer to Elijah (1 Kings 17:1, 1 Kings 21:17-28, 2 Kings 1:3-8, 2 Kings 9:36). The phrasing can be reworded as "Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead." The word is sometimes interpreted as "stranger," so that the verse might read "Elijah the stranger from among the strangers in Gilead." This designation is probably given to the prophet as denoting that his birthplace was Tishbe, a place in Upper Galilee (mentioned in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, Tobit 1:2). Josephus, the Jewish historian (Ant. 8:13, 2), however, supposes that Tishbe was some place in the land of Gilead. It has been identified by some with el-Ishtib, a place 22 miles due south of the Sea of Galilee, among the mountains of Gilead.

320 Kbps. Full artwork.

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Cocteau Twins - Violaine

Written, produced and engineered by Cocteau Twins.

"Alice" was also featured on the motion picture soundtrack of "Stealing Beauty."

An alternate mix of "Circling Girl" was originally released on the compilation CD/magazine Volume 15.

This was the last Cocteau Twins release to appear on Mercury/Fontana (with the exception of the song "Touch Upon Touch," which was released in late 1996 on the compilation Volume 17).

320 Kbps

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BBC Sessions, Anyone?

I'm late already, so I can't hang around. Just wanted to apologise to anyone who got a spam message from me today. It wasn't actually from me, but then you knew that already, right? Anyway, password changed so hopefully crisis averted.

I was keeping this till the weekend, but as I'm here now, here's something a bit special for the Cocteau heads out there. Although these reduced scale BBC versions don't perhaps have the impact of the proper studio stuff, they have a special charm all of their own. Instead of the usual "Cathedrals Of Sound", think "Maisonettes Of Sound".

I kill myself.

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Cocteau Twins - Otherness

Such a beautiful EP, this one. The last EP they released and a wonderful remix set from Seefeel's Mark Clifford. I must dig out the Seefeel albums, as they are totally beautiful and quite hard to come by these days.

I've said before that I think I started to take this stuff for granted, but revisiting these late period Cocteau twins releases has been somewhat of a revelation. Dysfunction and borderline mental illness has a weird track record of creating great art does it not?

In reverse order then, "Cherry Coloured Funk" sounds like the the music that will be played in the lift on the way up to Heaven. We know that everything is going to be alright, forever. Beautiful angel sigh on a bed of the softest feathery sweetness. It's funereal and life affirming at the same time. Liz has never sounded sweeter or more bonkers. Can there ever have been another track with the word "funk" in the title that was less funky?

This version of "Violane" does have a slightly loopy, trancey feel to it though. There's some sub-bass action happening and a multi-tracked Liz calls us to the dance with her seductive siren call.

"Seekers Who Are Lovers" propels us forwards like a bass driven jam on the Trans Europe Express. Once you hear Liz's "Hey yeah ah hey ah" riff, it might just stay with you forever. And then she does that choirboy thing that makes you wish you could just hear this on a loop until the end of forever. It's a fairly stripped down thing at this point, but it still works in the most spectacular fashion.

Lead track, "Feet-Like Fins" is suitably oceanic and images of mermaids and shagging fishwomen on spooky beaches are conjured seemingly from the watery ether. Although that might be just my fantasies bubbling to the surface. Whatever, it's lovely and pretty and a little bit magical.

I miss them terribly.

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Cocteau Twins - Twinlights

Apologies it's been a few weeks since we've had some proper updates here at Castles in Space. A punishing new job and a few family related trips to Cumbria and Southampton over the last few weekends haven't left much time for blog action.

I hope this lovely EP from Cocteau Twins goes some small distance to making up for my absence though. "Twinlights" seemed a ever so slightly anti climactic to me at the time of its release, but the intervening years and perhaps my current state of general exhaustion have conspired to make this wonderfully low key little thing sound towering and majestic in a way that has surprised me enormously. Perhaps its also the fact that after a run of fantastic Cocteaus's releases, it was easy to take them for granted. There is nothing I would like better than to hear some new stuff from them RIGHT NOW, however. Although this seems like the unlikeliest thing since the rumoured Smiths reunion. Oh well. At least we'll always have this wonderful, fragile little thing.

Adapted from Wikipedia:
"Twinlights is the 1995 EP by the Cocteau Twins. It was released along with the EP "Otherness" as a teaser for the album Milk and Kisses. Allmusic referred to it as "being as close to an "unplugged" effort as the Twins ever got." The EP was originally released on CD as well as a double vinyl 7".

"The EP has four tracks, two of which were re-imagined for Milk and Kisses ("Rilkean Heart" and "Half-Gifts"). "Pink Orange Red", which was released on the 1985 ep "Tiny Dynamine", is a stripped down version of the original with a piano playing the melody and opening. "Golden-Vein" is the only track on the EP not to appear on any other release.

Elizabeth Fraser describes this EP as being about a man she fell in love with during the 1994 Four-Calendar Cafe tour. The mystery man has been speculated to be Jeff Buckley by Fraser's biographer but she has never confirmed or denied this, although the song "Rilkean Heart" seems likely to be a homage to Jeff Buckley who was a lifelong lover of Rainer Maria Rilke's work.

"Otherness" will appear here soon.

320 Kbps with full artwork.

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Cocteau Twins - Violane

Late period wonderment from the collection of my mate, Fat Bob. A fellow 4AD obsessive, we kind of fell out of love with the Cocteau Twins as they limped towards their fairly depressing end. Horrible interviews have dribbled out in the intervening years with recriminations and accusations of drug addiction and an ongoing crippling lack of communication.

Listening back to this now though, it sounds magisterial. The lesson we learn once again is that even off-the-boil genius is way better than pedestrian mediocrity. And let there be no doubt, there is genius at work here.

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Cocteau Twins - Evangeline

Late period "cathedrals of sonic beauty" from the Cocteau Twins.

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