How to operate your new calculator

By Dan on December 13, 2006 in mp3blog

Making a post about the Cocteau Twins might just be the least necessary thing ever, or close to it—a digital hop, skip and not-even-a-jump away from posting some My Bloody Valentine MP3s and telling you to run out and buy Loveless right now because it’s going to turn everything you thought you knew about pop music upside down. But seriously, have you heard the Shins?

The Cocteau Twins are probably the first point on the shoegaze timeline (watch as I descend further into cliché). They used guitar to craft ethereal, hazy soundscapes, and loved heavy percussion, but lacked the kind of noise that would define bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain, Medicine and MBV.

Check out “Lorelei” to hear what I’m talking about.

Cocteau Twins - Lorelei

This is one of the Twins’ most famous songs, from the album where they really stepped away from wearing their goth influences on their sleeve and began exploring their own sound (1984’s Treasure).

But this isn’t just any old Cocteau Twins post. It goes without saying, but Liz Fraser’s singing is what makes the Cocteau Twins. Although her lyrics are usually indiscernible or made up of invented words, her melodies are just stunning, and when they’re at their absolute best, there’s nothing else in the world I’d rather listen to. Below are three Cocteau Twins songs that have, at one point or another, been on repeat enough to etch their melody permanently in my brain.

From the Love’s Easy Tears EP (1986):

Cocteau Twins – Orange Appled

From The Pink Opaque (1985):

Cocteau Twins – Millimillenary

From Heaven or Las Vegas (1990):

Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas

As long as we’re talking about undergraduate clichés and almost-but-not-quite shoegaze, here’s some MP3s from the first Brian Jonestown Massacre record, called Methodrone. Look at that by-the-books shoegaze record cover.

The record was released in the mid-‘90s, just as the press stopped fawning over all things shoegaze, which should at least partially account for why nobody ever talks about it. This record was really a pleasant surprise to listen to—much different than anything else I’ve heard from Anton Newcombe & Co.

Brian Jonestown Massacre – Evergreen

Brian Jonestown Massacre – That Girl Suicide

Brian Jonestown Massacre – Everybody Says

And finally, to end this medley of a post, via Moistworks, now you too can hear the magic of the VU & Nico acetate that Sarah mentioned yesterday without having to spend your entire college tuition:
here.

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