Cocteau Twins – Garlands

Excellent studio production and superb pressing. Each side flows properly, too.

Wonder if the original pressing is all-analog and if yes - up until which album did the Cocteau Twins press AAA vinyl?

well ... so much for that .... I see the style category has been voted back into existence ...

congrats ! now we can all feel safer that it's been put into its cage and we know how to approach it before the sound waves get into our ears ... God forbid we should find music listening to be disorienting or in any way too challenging ! :)

to whomever just removed the categorizing-of-style label from this release ... thank you much
I know people often have good intentions, but it can be really annoying to see people retroactively trying to "cage" works that at one time existed largely on their own merits and attracted people who often used a different part of their brain than the part that always needs to have things spoon-fed to them in order to properly contextualize and digest work .... sadly, the people who arrive latest to any scene often bring all this baggage that didn't exist for years ... and sometimes even decades ...after works were created and released

Ok so I know this review will be met with likely fierce fanboy disagreement, but in my humble opinion this is THE Cocteau Twins album to end all. I have to say that nothing after it matches the dreamy, brooding, hypnotic droning shoe gaze magic that they invoke with this debut. Everything after feels like a slow and painful disintegration towards commercialism. Head over heels they begin to fall flat on their faces, and it gets worse from there. Sure they manage to maintain a thread of the dreamy gothic magic that Garlands created, but it just gets prettier and tamer and far less interesting.
That’s what I’ve got to say about it anyway. I only wish this wasn’t limited to one album.

Alright, mates? Can anyone shed light on whether this original 4AD issue had a printed inner sleeve, or instead just a plain, generic inner? I seem to be finding some conflicting information regarding this...

In the unlikely event that somebody out there has a NM/Excellent+ cover ONLY(!) for this album, please get in touch. Thank you.

Superbe pressage ! Son limpide, chaleureux, profond, puissant. Thanks 4AD

4AD has just announced that they will be re-issuing vinyl of both Garlands and Victorialand.

Garlands is such a strange album. I have written a few bits here on Discogs, but have not yet brought myself to chain this album to words . . .

I love all of Cocteau Twins' releases, but Garlands definitely has a place of its own in my heart. Many 'fans' don't like Garlands. Others say Cocteau Twins albums get better, one after the other until Heaven and Las Vegas (the professed pinnacle). Obviously personal taste affects assessment of how to rank a Cocteau Twins album. It is hard to 'pick a favourite', kicking the others off the pedestal.

I'd say the best CT albums are the first three and between the first three there is a kind of odd journey - emerging a primordial state (Garlands); raw, seeing for the first time, all is a dazzle and there is little difference between blindness and sight. The journey continues in Limbo (Head over Heels); and finally there is arrival, or transcendance (Treasure). Of course I love the CT albums succeeding these three as the gems are all undoubtedly still present. (Alice is a wonderful track - and Dif Juz's Love Insane with Elizabeth Fraser's vocals is one of my favourite tracks . . .). But for those first three albums there seems to be something more complete / completely perfect.

Treasure is certainly a beauty, and with the track titles - godly, with a small G. It is a finely polished gem. Donimo is like arriving at the pearly gates, wings aflutter. Lorelei evokes the feeling of having been in heaven and passed straight through it. What else is there? Listen to Lorelei from 2 minutes twenty secs onwards: 'de dow de dow de dow de dow de dowwww . . . wwwwwop!' this part of the song effortlessly conveys a past yearning for heaven, twiddling thumbs to the turned face of beauty.

Head over Heels is also a beauty with its extraordinary position between two other perfect albums. "When Mama Was queer, I broke down in my womb" . . . this first track has the raw, vital sound of the album it is leaving, Garlands, but there is a new twinkling of purity, the future sound of CT: listen to this track, you'll hear what I mean. My Love Paramour - can you imagine if a piece of music like this were to emerge again today? And then the final track, Musette and Drums - insinuating the fusion of hard and soft, the delicate musette and the beating of drums.

To get back to the feeling of Garlands as a Cocteau Twins album in a territory of its own, part of the reason for this is the different line-up, having Will Heggie's bass. But also, Garlands has a rawer sound, almost grating - this gets to the magic of the album. Garlands seems to fuse the beauty of sound with its discordant opposite better than I have heard in other music. This fusion reveals a kind of pure light as it first emerges from its partner, darkness. It's difficult to put into words, once put in words they seem too small: sacred / profane, a religious feeling of being shown something secret, a lot of people have spoken like this to me of this album.

Blind Dumb Deaf seems to evoke some kind of fated, unrelenting, inescapable entrance into reality, "by the method of faith, I'll swear that I'm part of it." Swearing into a reality which could be both horrific and wonderful - the only reality. And then the title track itself, Garlands. I do love the opening track of Blood Bitch, it's supremely powerful with it's bass. However, if Blood Bitch weren't there, then Garlands could be. Garlands starts off with a strange build up of discordant screeches (very much like the sound of Gordon Sharpe's Cindytalk at that time). It's a bit like a train approaching. The music then hits you like a train. Garlands therefore is the perfect beginning album for the CT journey.

By the way, most of the Cocteau Twins' lyrics are words. I really wish Elizabeth would publish them - she obviously worked on them very hard and they do contribute to the beauty of the sound.

I mentioned Gordon Sharpe of Cindytalk. He appears with vocals in some of the extra tracks of Garlands. I wish there were more of these collaborations: his voice with Elizabeth's would be the perfect accompaniment. Camoufalge Heart is a stunning Cindytalk album (along with Wappinschaw and In This World.) Cindytalk is the best group 4AD didn't release - Gordon Sharpe did some work with This Mortal Coil.