Cocteau Twins Are The Best Band

Illustration: SHALTMIRA. 

During a recent test conducted on volunteers aged Me to Me, Cocteau Twins were voted the number one band most likely to be the best band, which they are, so the test was also proven one hundred percent accurate. “AARGH bleargh what about ____” you cry, a dark energy coalescing around your form as you prepare to unleash hell. What you’re not aware of is that this test was conducted by only the finest musical minds in the dumpster behind a local eatery that I was rootin’ around in when my rootin’ tootin’ good time was interrupted by the manager. “Oh I don’t know what to do with this tossed salad and scrambled eggs” I said as I ground my body deeper into the mush and filth. As my new companion’s mouth opened and closed a car drove by with open windows and I could hear it, distantly as though wafting from ♪ H e A v E n ♫: wahh wah wee wah woooo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Amee amano who who who. YeahHHHhhh the mother fricking lyrics to “Donimo” off of 1984’s Treasure. This extremely good shit inspired me to make this Audioccult all about my favorite band and why they’re the best band. I’m bobbing a tiny fishing pole with black eyeliner above my gadgetscreen to lure you out and listen to these records with me. Smash through the reality ceiling, wherever you are.

At the age of 19, Liz Fraser had the same haircut I had when I was 19. Damn, that’s basically the same haircut. I slapped my chest a lot and tied braided fabric rug tassels to the back of my head too, and I opened for Killing Joke and during the climax to “The Fall of Because” my mom came down to do laundry. I was so swept up in my stage show that I accidentally touched the laundry basket with her bra in it and after that I threw away my bong.

You can really feel the emotion with this one! Legend has it that Liz’s famous cover came about when former 4AD label head Ivo Watts-Russell was in bed one night listening to Weird Al’s “Eat It” and trying to formulate a song so beautifully transcendent that the comedian (then at the peak of his career) would never be able to do a parody of it. Since then, Watts-Russell claims he sees Yankovic sitting outside his bedroom window sometimes with a razor in his teeth.

Liz kept her vocals in the red for the entirety of this classic track as a tribute to Otis Redding. On the 30th Anniversary chopped and screwed B-side release, attentive listeners can hear Robin Guthrie screaming HE’S DEAD M8 over the mastering. A truly haunting masterpiece.

Rapper Lil B likes Cocteau Twins so much that when he heard the music he called them up right away and made this song with them. The mix of B’s stream-of-consciousness flow and Guthrie’s spectral chords act as a magickal spell. If you play it in a club, you can summon my cum. Thank you, based goth.~

Published May 02, 2014. Words by Daniel Jones.