Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Treasure - The Cocteau Twins

No history of “Alternative” music would be complete without The Cocteau Twins. Once their style became fully realized, their body of work became such a cohesive sound that it’s hard to pick a defining or landmark release. The adjectives typically assigned to their music - “ethereal,” “atmospheric,” “lush,” - have become so synonymous with their style, and that of their followers, that the words fail their descriptions and have become more opaque hallmarks of a stereotype than translucent explanation of a dense and highly unique musical style. Even more so, with the emergence of the “Shoegazer” aesthetic that followed them, the style flourished into more “accessible” expressions making the real foundations of the style even more opaque. So given the challenge, I’m picking 1984’s “Treasure” as The Cocteau Twins’ landmark album.

Take a moment to think about 1984. No matter which side of the pond you were on, there wasn’t much music around that sounded like this. Punk had transformed to “New Wave,” MTV had exploded into our lives, and with it brought us the “marketable concept” artist like Duran Duran, Madonna, Def Leppard. Music and image were wed like never before. The complaint of older music afficianados was that music videos were too obvious and too specific. Instead of music inspiring individualized interior movies of the listeners’ imagination, the role was reversed. The music was now subverted to the soundtrack of elaborately produced and styled mini-movies force fed to a generation. The impact of MTV and music videos on the history of modern music is certainly a separate and lengthy topic, but it sets the stage for understanding the Cocteau Twins.

Meanwhile, back in London, a guy named Ivo Watts-Russell had a little independent record label called 4AD. In the early eighties he had assembled a roster of artists that could only be described as ‘artsy’ or ‘ecclectic’. Bauhaus, The Wedding Present, The The - These were the misfits of the eighties, artists that had one foot in the rich tradition of british pop songwriting, but the other foot wandering far afield into experimental fields of dark atmosphere, strange emotional landscapes, experimental sound sculptures, and dark, now called “goth”, romantic narrative. The Cocteau Twins started their career in this pool of motley peers. It took a few albums to find their feet and truly establish their style, but it was clear from the start that part of their uniqueness was the vocals. Even in their debut album, with its grinding punk-ish songs, Elizabeth Fraser’s voice was pushed to the forefront of the mix where it dominated the guitar and weak drum machine with almost operatic, gymnastic bravado. It was clear in their earliest recordings that Fraser’s voice was capable of something more than the confines of the 3-4 minute pop-song. Within a single phrase or sometimes even word, her voice seemed to push the limit of the literal words and inflect them with an emotional energy that would push their meaning in new directions. But still mired in the seemingly purposely dark and obscure songwriting of that early eclectic style (encouraged at 4AD?), the Cocteaus failed to truly reach their potential.

Finally in 1984, they recorded “Treasure”. It’s hard to pinpoint what changed. Undoubtedly the change of bassists was part of the shift that moved them away from the more aggressively rhythm driven arrangements to the more relaxed space that gave Robin Guthrie the space to expand his approach to guitar and effects. Perhaps too, their concurrent collaboration with label mates Dif Juz taught them to let go of the more traditional expectations of the pop song for their more ‘ethereal’ sound. Whatever the reason, the result was a landmark album that would inspire a legion of followers, not to mention establish a style that would resonate in the halls of 4AD for years to come. (* I have to take a moment to note that Watts-Russell’s guidance has born similar fruit at 4AD where he’s simultaneously encouraged their stylistic development, as well as gave them the artistic freedom to deviate from the norm. Perhaps one of these entries needs to be about Landmark record labels and Producers, for surely they are as important to the history of modern music!)

Musically, the change was not so much a change of elements as it was a change in approach. The trio continued its framework of sequenced percussion, bass, and echo/effect-laden guitar work as the back ground for Fraser’s unique voice. But instead of trying to wrap that framework around pre-conceived and externally defined songwriting standards (i.e. the pop-radio and MTV marketing machine), it’s as if they closed the studio door, and let the framework itself determine the shape of the songs. The bass no longer sought to drive the composition, the guitars no longer were driven to find a hook, and most notably of all, Fraser’s voice freed itself from language. Stripped of the constraints of literal meanings or connotations the vocal now simply conveyed emotion, and in doing so released Fraser’s full range. What previously sounded forced and operatic, now leaped from angelic tones to earthy and primal growls, to dynamic swells and overdubbed layers of self-harmonies. Its almost as if her vocal styling took a page from Guthrie’s guitar style book where he was no longer concerned with using the guitar as a guitar per se, but instead let the instrument’s inherent physical attributes (open string harmonics), and the manipulations of electronic effects (distortion, echos and sustains) create music based more on pure sound than on the rigid expectations of genre.

And song by song, the tracks on “Treasure” exhibit a wide drift through genres that is easily overlooked as the listener is swamped in the wash of sound that unifies the entire album. Where songs like “Ivo” or “Lorelei” showcase dramatic surges in dynamic tension alternating between the heavenly ether and a more earthly sonic blast, “Beatrix” takes inspiration from almost medieval arpeggio plucking, and “Pandora” builds its atmosphere on a jazz influenced, syncopated rhythm. But listener isn’t left feeling like you just listened to a pastiche of styles. The wash of pure sound from both the guitar and the vocal almost bleaches out the connotations of the genres the songs engage. And while the songs are full of melodic hooks and textural fills that fix the attention, the abstractness of the song leaves the listener with only an emotional impression instead of a literal definition. The songs establish themselves at a balance point where they exhibit strong formal presence with a definite dramatic arch in songwriting, yet the abstract application of their instrumentation and voice, allow the song to disappear into the very ether they seemed to suggest. It’s as if each song is a dream from which you awake with a profound feeling, but only a fleeting memory of why you felt it.

With “Treasure”, and the albums that followed, anyone would be hard pressed to say what a Cocteau Twins song is about. I remember a joke in college: “Have you heard that new Cocteau Twins song?” to which you would answer, “I’m not sure, how does it go?” You were left with yodeling and singing to each other in baby talk that couldn’t even approximate the melody or words. Contrast that with what you would say to describe the music of their contemporaries in “The Dawn of MTV”. How do you say what a Duran Duran song is about? Its easy - you have a video to imprint your consciousness with a narrative. The importance of “Treasure” was how it broke with the mainstream of music that was become so dominated by overt messages, and ultimately marketing, and set out in a direction that championed pure sound, and the autonomy of songwriting freed from everything but the drive to express emotion and mood.

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