CocteauTwins

Quora Answer : What are your top 5 shoegaze songs of all time?

Feb 26, 2020

For my money nothing in "shoegaze" etc can ever be better than this

I mean, a tonne of other Cocteau Twins stuff is better. But for that shoegaze wall of sound. That has to pull off the trick of being simultaneously fierce and delicate, ferocious and tranquil, nothing beats it.

Only MBV's Loveless comes close.

And this is just the original. And so stupendously uplifting.

Quora Answer : What is your favorite Cocteau Twins album?

Jun 9, 2020

For me, Treasure is the definitive Cocteaus' album.

It's a masterpiece.

But ... in many ways, I think they were at their very best on the trio of EPs that came directly after it : Aikea-Guinea, Tiny Dynamine, Echoes in a Shallow Bay.

I mean, just listen. So strange, disturbing and beautiful at the same time.

Incredible melodies. Combined with Liz Frazer's very rhythmically inventive multitracked vocals. The cavernous reverb and cosmic hazy chords.

Later on the "strange and disturbing" got a bit tamed. I'm not so much a fan of the later albums. Still some amazing songs on them, but you lose the sense of the Cocteau's as a sui generis mystical force. They suddenly become rather too human.