Robin Guthrie "Springtime" (2022)

Springtime, ep

release date: Jan. 4, 2022

format: digital (4x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Soleil Après Minuit - nationality: Skotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Kino's Chance" - 2. "The Faraway" - 3. "Another Part of Nowhere" - 4. "All for Nothing"

4-track ep by Scottish guitarist Robin Guthrie follows only one month after his ep Riviera, which in turn followed one month after Mockingbird Love (both limited to four tracks) is as usual released on his own label, and the music is also written, composed, arranged, performed, as well as produced by Guthrie himself. Since his days with dream pop trio Cocteau Twins back in the late nineties, Guthrie has looked down on popular music and turned to evocative instrumental and thoroughly atmospheric expressions with the guitar at the center of his compositions. Occasionally, he lets the guitar parody keyboards and synths, which he also uses, but it's mainly electric guitar connected to a series of effects and via computer programming that he paints his sound collages. If you have followed his solo releases for the past two decades - entire albums and many EPs, or you have come across some of his many collaborative projects, either as hired composer for film music - and often together with the now late American minimalist Harold Budd - you may have noted that Guthrie has settled into a rather simple ambient style that he hasn't shied away from. And that's why new releases may sound like recycling or new paraphrasings of already known sound loops. While part of Cocteau Twins, Guthrie was also responsible for drum programming, but the will to include drums could seem not wanted. On some compositions, e.g. "Kino's Chance" you'll notice sonically weak rhythm actions - perhaps best heard on "All for Nothing", but the soundscape is grandiose harmonic guitar structures that the whole ep exhibits. Admittedly, not a lot happens on Springtime, and yet it stands out as one of his better solo releases. The simplicity draws a clear line back to his first real collaborative work with Budd: Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film back in 2005 and up to his later collaborations with the classically trained American composer.

Although the music is ethereal and ambient moving on the verge to new age, it's the small simple melody lines that create the clear picture - something I haven't always been able to find in Guthrie's music. Together with Budd, Guthrie cultivated the minimalist expression building on Budd's open piano pedals and Guthrie's powerful guitar notes - and it was almost their only applied instrumentation, but on this, Guthrie works with rhythm-based music, even if the rhythm is toned down, because I feel his guitar comes more into its own right when he simultaneously lets rich bass lines accompany drum patterns. This way, it also becomes more varied. Occasionally, you could suspect Guthrie in making extensive use of old sound sequences recorded back in the '80s as he was left in solitude to compose pieces for Elizabeth Fraser's vocal and Simon Raymonde's bass notes, but this is ultimately irrelevant when the music here appears new, clean and complete. These are delicious, atmospheric sound collages that, like a quiet summer evening, appear as the ideal campfire that warms you deep inside, and which only utters that the album is only missing more and longer compositions; but it's only an ep, and unfortunately it's all over in just 15 minutes. Then if Springtime won't satisfy you, I can only recommend his latest full album Pearldiving (Nov. 2021), and his final album with Harold Budd: Another Flower from 2020.

Nice to know.

[ bandcamp ]

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd "Another Flower" (2020)

Another Flower

release date: Dec. 4, 2020

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Soleil Après Minuit - nationality: Skotland, UK / USA

Track highlights: 1. "Some Smoke" - 2. "Perfect Fire" - 4. "November Day" - 5. "After Dark" - 7. "Harlequin Delight" - 8. "Very Slender Homage"

Final collaborative project between Scottish dream pop master Robin Guthrie and American composer and minimalist Harold Budd. The album is not a bunch of brand new compositions but actually a collection of more than seven years old recordings, which now see the light of day. Possibly, they were intended as another joint work between the now 58-year-old Guthrie and 84-year-old Budd, but it now appears as their last joint work, as Budd was hit by COVID-19 before the album came out and eventually died from complications related to the decease on Dec. 8, 2020 - only 14 days before the album release. As noted in the accompanying liner notes, the album is "Written and performed by Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd during a rainy Summer in Brittany, 2013". It isn't directly mentioned that the album was recorded over a single day or over a matter of sessions, but most often they basically worked in the moment with the recorder running, and while the music was created and performed from start to finish. Perhaps this music wouldn't have been released had Budd not passed away so abruptly 'cause fact is: these compositions are seven-year-old recordings with which Guthrie now choose to pay tribute to his long-time musical playmate. And Harold Budd may not have heard the album in its entirety and with the tracks precisely ordered as they appear here - but Budd heard it all, because he was there himself.

As usual, it's the gentle atmospheric sounds that dominate Guthrie and Budd's music. Since these compositions they have released more than a handful of joint albums, either as musical scores for feature films or as their own releases. They are both listed here as performers and composers of all music, and as usual only Guthrie is credited as album producer. It's another chapter in a common ethereal ambient style that clearly touches on new age and doesn't walk on entirely new paths. The elder Budd is a classically-schooled pianist and composer, and he has early admitted to an improvisational and minimalist expression, which has proven to go quite well with Guthrie's preference for an airy guitar sound. Their final recordings together in terms of chronology was their collaborative works resulting in the 2014 soundtrack White Bird in a Blizzard for the film of the same name directed by Japanese-American Gregg Araki, who had also made "Mysterious Skin" in 2005, for which Guthrie and Budd introduced their collaborative work. In addition to these soundtracks, together they composed and made After the Night Falls and Before the Day Breaks released simultaneously in 2007 as two individual releases, and later they released Bordeaux in 2011. That same year, they also released Winter Garden as a joint project with Italian musician Eraldo Bernocchi.

Another Flower is, as the title suggests, another distinctive work from Guthrie and Budd - another flower. Perhaps, this was a metaphor Budd used about their compositions or works - we don't know for sure. Guthrie came up with the title after Budd's death - it could also be a reference to Budd himself, as a flower that was here, it was seen, admired, and is now gone. Musically speaking, it's not the large and complex compositional structures that characterise their compositions, but it's music created in a shared moment and in a warm, friendly common expression. You could object that they cling on to the same colours, the same airy timbres, which in way they do, but these are tones that contain something valuable by being created as common breaths expressed in music, and which show themselves as a unique and living organism.

Although new age as such is not really a favourite genre of mine, the album here expresses something quite unique. It's the evidence of both musicians' fondness for the instantaneous - the moment of creation, and they both allow / invite one another to contribute without one or the other dominate the soundscape, or you end up sensing one over the other, and that's a great strength and quality to be able to strike a common note when improvising. When one leads, the other follows suit, and they set out in a common unknown direction with equal vigor to a common end.

Another Flower may not be a work that indicates new paths or inspires new styles, but the music clearly has its merits, and occasionally I feel the music strikes an expression that reminds me of other big names of ethereal music, such as Palle Mikkelborg or Ryuichi Sakamoto, but always without giving impression of plagiarism. When I shut my eyes, I can easily conjure up internal images of underwater footage from Luc Besson's "Le Grand Bleu", which had music by Éric Serra. It's done sincerely and beautifully, and it's perhaps Guthrie and Budd's greatest swan song. At least I haven't heard them perform better than on this album.

Recommended.

Robin Guthrie & Mark Gardener "Universal Road" (2015)

Universal Road

release date: Mar. 23, 2015

format: digital (10 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,04]

producer: Robin Guthrie & Mark Gardener

label: Soleil Après Minuit - nationality: UK

Track highlights: 1. "Universal Road" - 2. "Dice" - 7. "Sometime" - 10. "Blind"

Collaboration album by Robin Guthrie and Mark Gardener produced by the duo and released on Guthrie's label. Guthrie's most recent release was yet another collaboration work, the 2014 soundtrack album White Bird in a Blizzard, made with longtime collaborator Harold Budd for a movie by Gregg Araki, who also directed the film for which Guthrie and Budd made their collaboration debut Mysterious Skin: Music from the Film (2005). Guthrie's most recent solo album is Fortune from 2012.

Together with Gardener the two artists share a common background in "classic" 1990's dream pop. Guthrie was one of the founders of the Scottish trio, The Cocteau Twins, who released eight full-length studio albums from 1982 to 1995, and Gardener is lead vocalist and guitarist in the English shoegazing quartet, Ride, who debuted with the acclaimed Nowhere back in 1990 - a band who originally released four studio albums from 1990 to their split in 1996. However, the band reformed in 2014 and they have released a fifth studio album in 2017 and have a sixth album have been announced for release later in 2019.

Musically, the album comes closest to the music by Ride as it's dream pop with Gardener's typical melancholic vocals and a strumming guitar sound, which doesn't really rhyme too strongly with Guthrie's discography. Guthrie's ethereal swirling and echo-fused guitar appears here and there as background fill but it doesn't really put a solid fingerprint on an album where Gardener seems to "steal the show".

It's all very nice and well-composed but it also sounds very much like music made at least two decades earlier. Sometimes you find Guthrie starting a song quite nicely after which Gardener's vocal and britpop harmonies turns it into something else. And it's not so much that Gardener destroys Guthrie's intro, but more that their mutual efforts backfires into something less original. I'm not impressed and feel they could have utilised their individual strengths better - instead it sounds like bits and pieces from their earlier works smashed together without obvious attempts in making new music.

A bit of a disappointment.

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd "White Bird in a Blizzard" (OST) (2014)

White Bird in a Blizzard (soundtrack)

release date: Sep. 23, 2014

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,52]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Lakeshore Records - nationality: Scotland, UK / USA

Track highlights: 1. "Visions of Eve" - 2. "Brock's Theme" - 4. "Curious" - 5. "Forever Changed" - 11. "I'm Here, Kat, I'm Here" - 12. "White Bird"

[ full album ] [ film trailer ]

Soundtrack by Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd for the film of the same name directed by Gregg Araki, who also directed the 2005 film "Mysterious Skin" for which Guthrie and Budd also provided the musical score, which was their first actual exclusive collaboration, released as Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film. Almost two decades earlier, however, they had made their first album together: The Moon and the Melodies (1986) as a collaboration with Elizabeth Fraser and Simon Raymonde - Guthrie's other two partners from The Cocteau Twins.

White Bird in a Blizzard would turn out to be their last recordings together. December 2020 saw the release of the album Another Flower, but the tracks here, like the tracks for White Bird in a Blizzard, were already recorded in 2013. Perhaps the compositions for both albums stem from the same recording session? It consolidates unmistakably the same moods and soundscape, although the soundtrack overall contains more varied music, which is largely due to the fact that the individual tracks are not, like the 2020 album, attributed both artists - only tracks #4 and #8 are credited both, and exactly those two could easily have be included on Another Flower without changing the overall expression. The soundtrack consists of twelve compositions with a total playing time of 41 minutes. Guthrie is credited tracks #1, #2, #5, #7, #11, and #12, while Budd is exclusive composer of tracks #3, #6, #9, and #10. Quite naturally, you'll notice a distinct dream pop style to Guthrie's tracks, with Budd's compositions being far more minimalistic. However, there are no explicit signs indicating that they do not contribute to each other's compositions, but you may note how Budd's instrumentals are without string instrumentation, and in isolation these stand a bit on their own. Compared to their first film score collaboration, the album here stands stronger because it's more varied without being disjointed. Personally, I prefer Guthrie's compositions but the collaboration with Budd is certainly not without quality, even if Budd's own piano and keyboard variations are a little too new age-styled to my liking. Together, they certainly make relevant music, and I feel as this album surpasses their previous collaborations.

Recommended.

Robin Guthrie "Fortune" (2012)

Fortune

release date: Nov. 26, 2012

format: digital (10 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Soleil Après Minuit - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Cadence" - 2. "Circus Circus" - 3. "Ladybird" - 4. "Tigermilk" - 7. "Forever Never"

5th solo album by Robin Guthrie follows 1½ years after Emeralds (May 2011) and is possibly the first to only be issued on Guthrie's own label Soleil Après Minuit, although most of his solo material and collaboration albums also have been released in some secondary format on the label.

Fortune doesn't stir anyone's image of Robin Guthrie. In fact it sound very much like the "B-side" to Emeralds with an ethereal and ambient style built around Guthrie's slow-burning guitar harmonies with as much echo and delay effects you can get.

The album has been issued via Darla Records for vinyl issues, but it seems he's no longer being promoted, which explains why it's difficult to find any official reviews. Quite naturally, Guthrie doesn't sell in large numbers - I think his income may depend on projects: film scores, producer or mixing credits, and that his new releases to a large extent are financed via his technical status. And that again may explain why his music sound so much alike. For Guthrie, it's no more a desire to create new styles, better selling albums, but much more the result of his love for a specific kind of sound. He doesn't care if critics, distributors or radio stations find his music dull or off the target. Still, when you're familiar with his collaboration works with Harold Budd, his solo albums Carousel (2009) and Emeralds (2011), then you may begin to wish as I do: what if Robin Guthrie had someone else produce his album - his next solo release? Wouldn't that be something! He has developed a sound that is almost touching on sterile, where every effect-pedal needs a fixed position, so that the guitar swirls in the exact same way it did one or maybe even two decades ago. Yes, he is a sound engineer and a sound wizard, but how I wish he could learn some new tricks.

That said, Fortune is warm honey for your ears. So find yourself a moment of peace. Turn up the volume and put on Fortune. Sit down in your favourite chair. Close your eyes. Wait. Wait. Wait. Listen!

Recommended.

Robin Guthrie "Emeralds" (2011)

Emeralds

release date: May 12, 2011

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,48]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Rocket Girl - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Digging for Gold" - 2. "Radiola" - 3. "Wishing" - 8. "Emeralds"

[ full album ]

4th solo album by Robin Guthrie follows "only" 1½ years since the album Carousel (Sep. 2009), which may be a relatively normal period between albums but in the case of Guthrie, who normally has spent years in between solo albums and instead released collaboration albums and worked as producer or featuring artist this is a considerably short amount of time. And it's not that he hasn't issued other material, as he of Feb. 2011 released the collaboration album Bordeaux together with Harold Budd. Well, that album is bettering their previous efforts, although, it's still held in minimalist ambient form but they somehow managed to focus on dynamics within the narrow boundaries of their sound, and this could also easily be said about Emeralds. Guthrie doesn't surprise you with alt. rock nor with swirling distorted guitars as heard in the heydays of the Cocteau Twins. He appears to have found his stand in the corner with delay pedals, echo and chorus effects, and with sparse additional drum programming, just to add some details or diversity. And by doing so, he seems to understand the limitations his approach with ethereal and ambient new age-like style puts on his music. On his earliest albums, and his collaboration works with Harold Budd, there was this "body of sound", which had a start and an end, but where you hardly noticed where one track began and another started - it was like one piece of prolonged slow-motion jump on the moon. Now that has shifted with new angles to the jump. The single tracks stand out, although, it's still all very ethereal and almost done without other instrumentation than earlier, I pressume. But there's an overall sensation of single compositions, which I consider a quality of sorts, and perhaps it's something Guthrie has become more aware of - to make subtle changes in tempo or colour. I like to think so. At least I find his recent music and that of Emeralds to be more intriguing. As said, it's still ambient - it's even touching on new age ground, which from my general perspective isn't something you should aim for, but in this case, it works quite all right.

[ PopMatters 3 / 5 stars ]

Robin Guthrie "Carousel" (2009)

Carousel

release date: Sep. 4, 2009

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,12]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Darla Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Some Sort of Paradise" - 2. "Sparkle" - 9. "Waiting by the Carousel"

3rd full-length solo album by Robin Guthrie following nearly 3½ years after Continental (May 2006). Three years between albums may seem like a long time but Guthrie has released several other albums in between his solo albums. In 2007 he released two albums After the Night Falls and Before the Day Breaks as collaboration works with American composer Harold Budd - both released June 11, 2007, and in 2008 he released the soundtrack album 3:19 - Bande originale du film with Guthrie's music for the 2008 feature film "3:19 Nada es casualidad" by Mexican director Dany Saadia. Also, earlier this year (May 2009), he released the collaboration album Mirrorball with British new wave and synthpop artist John Foxx (also former vocalist of Ultravox).

Carousel pretty much takes off from where his collaboration work with Harold Budd had left him: in spacious spheres of bright blue light - well-pictured in the cover art (although, that may probably be an underwater shot). It's first and foremost an ambient release without a distinct rhythm section, and Guthrie makes use of guitar-layered effects. Only on track #9 "Waiting by the Carousel", whcih probably gave name to the album title, you hear drum programming and something that brings dynamics into the picture. I'm not all that fond of this particular album, as I generally don't have a sweet tooth for new age music. It simply reeks a meditative state that only sends you to bed and echoes anything but great originality. Guthrie is still a great guitarist, but only seldom utilise this gifts to produce strong compositions.

Not recommended.

[ 👍Pitchfork 6.5 / 10, Record Collector 3 / 5 stars ]

Robin Guthrie "Continental" (2006)

Continental

release date: May 15, 2006

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Rocket Girl - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Continental" - 3. "Crescent" - 4. "Monument" (live on KEXP) - 6. "The Day Star" - 10. "Pale"

2nd solo album by Scottish artist Robin Guthrie following three years after Imperial (2003) is the first of four albums originally released on American label Darla Records - issued by Rocket Girl in Europe. Since the debut he has made the second and final album Russian Doll (2004) togeher with Siobhan de Maré in their duo-project Violet Indiana, and he has collaborated with American composer Harold Budd in making the music score Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film (2005), but Continental is his second pure solo album, and as the first, an album of instrumental compositions.

The album differs from his first and also from his recent collaborative releases by being more uptempo founded in a typical dream pop kind of style that bonds more with the music by Cocteau Twins than his debut album as the ambient and minimalism dimensions have been considerably reduced or replaced by more traditional music structure. Some suggest that theese compositions may have been recorded or composed while Guthrie played in Cocteau Twins, meaning more than a decade earlier, which also explains the closer connection to the soundscape of his former band. And I do believe there's a point in that - also when referring to his most recent releases and the fact that only three months succeeding this, he released an ep Everlasting (Jul. 2006) with music that both contain compositions of multi-layering dream pop style and tracks that are like ambient minimalist structure making the narrow 4-track ep extremely incoherent but nevertheless all instrumentals with Guthries' fingerprints all over - despite the strong incoherency - like a couple of old "leftovers" and two new compositions. Anyway, several songs on Continental follow the structure of the title track by starting off as pure ambient compositions but then advance into more uptempo patterns with drum programming and even some vocal harmonies thrown in, although, without actual lyrics. Track #5. "Amphora" and track #9. "Last Exit" are the exceptions sounding more like outtakes from his debut, and track #6. "The Day Star" is another exception by being noise rock and / or post rock-styled as something influenced by Sigur Rós or Mogwai with a progressive beat and swirling distorted guitars as culmination.

All in all, Continental is a much more diverse collection of songs but also more digestible than Guthrie's previous minimalist and almost new age and ambient exercises.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd "Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film" (OST) (2005)

Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film (soundtrack)

release date: May 24, 2005

format: digital

[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,08]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Rykodisc - nationality: Scotland, UK / USA

Collaboration album by Scottish guitarist Robin Guthrie together with American composer Harold Budd. The album is not an official soundtrack but the actual film score album for "Mysterious Skin" (2004) by Gregg Araki. The soundtrack has also been issued and is somewhat different with music by various artists of dream pop and shoegaze including original compositions by Sigur Rós, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Ride and Curve. Harold Budd is renowned for his contributions as jazz avantgardist and composer of music described as minimalism and / or neo-classical, and here he has composed 15 tracks together with Robin Guthrie.

Musically, it doesn't fall far from Guthrie's solo debut Imperial (2003) as it's first and foremost instrumental and ambient music relying heavily simple music structure based on guitar and piano / keyboards with some occasional drum programming as additional instrumentation.

The album is their first in a series of collaboration works, which came to an abrupt end with Another Flower (2020) as Harold Budd died from COVID-19, Nov. '20. Actually, Guthrie and Budd already met back in 1985 when they worked together on the album The Moon and the Melodies (1986), which is released as a collaboration work between Budd and the Scottish band Cocteau Twins - as Budd's first encounter with popular music - credited all four and to the individuals of the band: Simon Raymonde, Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie. So, Mysterious Skin: Music From the Film is realised some 20 years later; however, the two have made several other albums together, e.g. After the Night Falls and Before the Day Breaks both released simultaneously Jun. 2007.

This film score may work on a completely different level while accompanied with images and dialogue from the film, but as a stand-alone work, it's a difficult listen.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Robin Guthrie "Imperial" (2003)

Imperial [debut]

release date: Mar. 24, 2003

format: digital

[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,92]

producer: Robin Guthrie

label: Bella Union - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Imperial" - 2. "Freefall" - 9. "Elemental"

Studio album debut as soloist by Robin Guthrie, former guitarist of Cocteau Twins and released on the label founded by Guthrie and former bandmate Simon Raymonde in '97 - their first release being Raymonde's only solo album Blame Someone Else (1997). It's been exactly seven years since the final album by Cocteau Twins and since then Guthrie has primarily produced and featured on other artists' releases. He also took part in the dream pop project Violet Indiana from 2000 to 2006 together with vocalist Siobhan de Maré, and they ended up releasing two full-length studio albums, some singles and two eps, but Imperial is Guthrie's first actual solo album.

Not surprisingly, it contains instrumental compositions built on guitar with bold use of reverb, echo and delay effects to create ten primarily ambient compositions.

Guthrie is an original guitarist and a unique sound wizard but an overall verdict of his spacious creations doesn't ring any bells shouting "masterpiece!" or "fantastic!". It's nice to hear from him (again) but I guess a lot of people and especially the old fans of the Twins had hoped for more; or just something else. It all sounds very fine, but with no obvious differences from track to track it quickly sounds like music for meditation or compositions with missing layers, or perhaps music for visual art. In fact, Guthrie would later on establish himself as productive composer of soundtracks, but until then, this is... a start.

[ 👌allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]

Cocteau Twins "Milk & Kisses" (1996)

Milk & Kisses
release date: Mar. 1996
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
produced by Cocteau Twins
label: Fontana Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Violaine" - 2. "Serpentskirt" - 3. "Tishbite" - 5. "Calfskin Smack" - 10. "Seekers Who Are Lovers"

8th and final studio album by the Scottish trio Cocteau Twins released on Fontana and produced by the band. This is a continued journey from their previous album Four-Calendar Café (1993) into a subtle 'dream pop' universe but also a return to a more Robin Guthrie (multi-layered) guitar-driven sound compared to the predecessor, and you could argue that it takes them back to their trademark of distorted wall-of-sound guitars. What it really leaves me with, is an impression of "nothing new", and that's a bit sad 'cause it's not all bad. It just doesn't offer anything... new, which they basically always did with previous releases. They were always on the move to a new sound, only here, they re-use what seem to work previously.

By 1997 the band had split. While in the band and afterwards, Robin Guthrie has worked as record producer and in 2003 he released his first solo album Imperial after which he has pursued a solo career releasing new albums every now and then including a number of fine soundtracks - alone, or in collaborations. Simon Raymonde released his so far only solo album Blame Someone Else in 1997 and has been involved in other bands as well as worked as record producer, and together with Guthrie the two have worked on several projects since the break-up. Elizabeth Fraser has been a much-asked for artist but mainly lived a life away from the spotlight, although she has occasionally contributed as featuring guest vocalist on other artists' albums, as well as at live concerts, but an announced solo album has yet to be realised.
Milk & Kisses was reissued in 2006 in a remastered edition produced by Guthrie.

Fine but not amongst their absolute best.

2006 remaster

Cocteau Twins "Four-Calendar Café" (1993)

Four-Calendar Café
release date: Nov. 1993
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,95]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: Fontana Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Know Who You Are at Every Age" (5 / 5) - 2. "Evangeline" (4 / 5) - 3. "Bluebeard" (4 / 5) - 6. "Squeeze-Wax" - 9. "Summerhead" (4,5 / 5)

7th studio album by Cocteau Twins follows three years after Heaven or Las Vegas is much to the band's usual practise recorded and produced by the band. Since then, the band has left 4AD Records around '92 at a time when the label underwent management changes and Cocteau Twins then signed with larger Mercury Records to release music through its sublabel, Fontana Records. Apparently, the album took unusually long time to record - partly because guitarist Robin Guthrie and vocalist Elizabeth Fraser broke up their partnership, which had lasted some 13 years and given them a daughter in '89, and also because Fraser went through what has been described as a nervous breakdown while Guthrie was having troubles with substance abuse. Cocteau Twins had always been on its way playing concerts, recording albums or eps and the money earned was money spent going into studio and technical equipment investments, and easy access to drugs and alcohol hadn't made things easier.

Four-Calendar Café is not "Heaven or Las Vegas Part Two" - something many people had hoped for but the sound has changed, again, you might add 'cause that's what they had always been doing - always on their way bulding their (new) sound. It's a less uptempo album of an ambient feel compared to its acclaimed predecessor and the style has evolved to become more sophisticated with something I initially had mistaken for a touch of 'new age' but really just is a softer and more laid-back type of dream pop. The band members remain the same three but Robin Guthrie's distinct 'dreamy' or shoegaze guitar sound is considerably subdued on this, and then Fraser performs her singing in almost distinctive lyrics.

As many fans, my initial thoughts about this were less than positive, and I neglected the album for quite some time. I must say, however, that in retrospect it's much better than that, and years later, I had changed my verdict and now consider it among their best. The album has a pleasant melancholic feel and a sophisticated sound without being anything but dream pop. It's anything but an attempt to copy the success they experienced with Heaven or Las Vegas and instead represents a natural progression to a new playground of a more delicate sound. The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2006, still on Fontana.

Recommended.

[ 👎allmusic.com 3 / 5, 👍NME, Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]

2006 remaster

Cocteau Twins "Heaven or Las Vegas" (1990)

Heaven or Las Vegas
release date: Sep. 17, 1990
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,06]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Cherry-Coloured Funk" (4 / 5) - 3. "Iceblink Luck" (4,5 / 5) - 5. "Heaven or Las Vegas" (4,5 / 5) - 6. "I Wear Your Ring" - 7. "Fotzepolitic" (4 / 5) - 8. "Wolf in the Breast" - 10. "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires"

6th studio album by Scottish trio Cocteau Twins follows two years after Blue-Bell Knoll takes a step into more uptempo territory with focus on harmonic melody structure. Alledgedly, the album is released on Fraser and Guthrie's daughter's one-year birthday, which alludes a perfect family harmony that may not be there after all. Guthrie had to spend time in rehab caused by drug and alcohol abuse, and tensions with the 4AD management was just another issue they had to face.

The album is generally considered the band's masterpiece into dream pop. It's also the band's highest charting album in the UK peaking at number #7 on the albums chart list. All tracks are credited the band, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist Robin Guthrie, and bassist Simon Raymonde, and the album has been enlisted in a number of best of releases of the nineties. This is also the first time really that you're capable of understanding the lyrics by Fraser, who was already renowned for her indistinct singing style up until this. I also find that the production sound is way better here than on any other of their previous albums. Guthrie's guitar with their keyboard-sound and the drum programming together with Raymonde's tight basslines all make up a perfect bright sound that both dwells but only touches on ambient and still create clear and perfect harmonies weighing both melancholy and positivity. Heaven or Las Vegas is enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" and it was released to generally positive reviews, but 4AD still wouldn't sign the band for further albums, which from hereon sent the band in the hands of Fontana Records.

The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2003.

[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Cocteau Twins "Blue Bell Knoll" (1988)

Blue Bell Knoll
release date: Sep. 19, 1988
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,48]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 2. "Athol-brose" - 3. "Carolyn’s Fingers" (4 / 5) (live on Later) - 5. "The Itchy Glowbo Blow" - 6. "Cico Buff" - 7. "Suckling the Mender" - 9. "A Kissed Out Red Floatboat" - 10. "Ella Megalast Burls Forever"

5th studio album by Cocteau Twins, who is back again as a trio with Simon Raymonde on bass. It's their first really clear dream pop album since their so far best effort, Treasure (1984), and after having released the more introvert and ambient, instrumental album Victorialand (1986) at a time when Raymonde wasn't able to record with the band. Cocteau Twins is already famous for Guthrie's guitar sound, the shoegazing dream pop and Fraser's beautiful echoing vocal, and here they pick up the style from the '84 album.
Without being great the album is a clear improvement to the darker '86 album Victorialand.

Cocteau Twins "Victorialand" (1986)

Victorialand
release date: Apr. 14, 1986
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Lazy Calm" - 2. "Fluffy Tufts" - 8. "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow"

4th studio album by Cocteau Twins, who continues to release on the independent label 4AD. Again, the album is produced by the band, which once again is temporarily reduced to consist of only Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, as bassist Simon Raymonde was occupied in making the second album by This Mortail Coil, and instead Fraser and Guthrie have focused on a different take on their music - perhaps by regrading to former virtues, thus making their clearly most ethereal wave-styled album, which comes quite close to being primarily an 'ambient' release. It's really hard to tell if it's an improvement to Fraser and Guthrie's constant dwelling on a certain dream pop soundscape that tends to be repetitious but it also has a distinct quality, which makes me think of The Durutti Column / Vini Reilly - that being of course Guthrie's guitar sound, and with the exception that Reilly generally leaves more room for diverse compositions on his albums.

Victorialand doesn't contain clear single hits but has more of a conceptual feel, or something that points to the later style of post-rock. This is the band's most poignant ambient release, which may have had an influence on and indirectly led to the album The Moon and the Melodies (Nov. '86) as a collaboration with American jazz minimalist and neo-classical composer Harold Budd and the band members individually and not as Cocteau Twins, thus credited Harold Budd, Simon Raymonde, Robin Guthrie, Elizabeth Fraser.
Anyway, Victorialand is imho not where you should start when looking up the Cocteau Twins.

Cocteau Twins "The Pink Opaque" (1985)

The Pink Opaque (compilation)
release date: Dec. 30, 1985
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5]
producer: Cocteau Twins, Ivo Watts-Russell
label: 4AD / Relativity Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

A compilation album by Cocteau Twins as the band's first release in the American market consists of tracks recorded in the years from 1982 to 85, some of which only have been released on ep or as single releases, i.e. all three tracks from the single "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" (1984).
It's not bad, and despite the early takes, which should underline their earlier post-punk and dark wave sound, the tracks have been selected to fit a more contemporary Cocteau Twins dream pop sound.

Cocteau Twins "Treasure" (1984)

Treasure
release date: Nov. 1, 1984
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Cocteau Twins / Robin Guthrie (2003 reissue)
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1"Ivo" - 2. "Lorelei" (4 / 5) (live) - 4. "Persephone" - 5. "Pandora (For Cindy)" - 7. "Aloysius" - 10. "Donimo"

3rd studio album by Cocteau Twins is the first really fine album by the band who still do not operate with a drummer, only using drum machines, but Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie has now found the replacement for former bassist Will Heggie by expanding the project with Simon Raymonde. The album is the first to be exclusively produced by the band, and the sound is at this point a trademark hailed as a brilliant display of workmanship, and a sound that focuses on Guthrie's guitar sound and Fraser's characteristic undecipherable vocal harmonies using her voice as an instrument of sound.
It's still not entirely harmonic dream pop - a few tracks like "Persephone" and "Cicely" still sounds like heavily inspired by Siouxsie and the Banshees without being poor or lesser compositions but they do point in other directions and have a distinct post-punk feel.
The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2003. It's an acclaimed album by the band, and many critics (and fans) consider this to be their finest, which is enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
I don't really consider the album one of the band's absolute best as I find it too incoherent pointing to much more consistent releases but it's undoubtedly important in the way it helps defining their later sound.
Recommended.
[ 👎allmusic.com, Spin 4,5 / 5, 👉Rolling Stone Music Guide 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Cocteau Twins "Sunburst and Snowblind" (1983) (ep)

Sunburst and Snowblind (ep)

release date: Nov. 7, 1983

format: digital

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,34]

producer: Cocteau Twins, John Fryer

label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Sugar Hiccup (12'' Version)" - 2. "From the Flagtstones" - 3. "Hitherto" - 4. "Because of Whirl-Jack"

4-track ep by Cocteau Twins following only two months after the album Head Over Heels (Oct. '83) marks a change of style. Yes, the best track "Sugar Hiccup" is taken from the most recent album but where it sounded misplaced on the album, it's in company of other dream pop-shaped compositions here. On "From the Flagstones" Elizabeth Fraser sounds like on This Mortail Coil's most memorable tune "Song to the Siren", which should be released a full year later. It's not all dream pop, however, as the last two compositions points more to the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees than to the future sound of Cocteau Twins.

Cocteau Twins "Head Over Heels" (1983)

Head Over Heels
release date: Oct. 31, 1983
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Cocteau Twins, John Fryer
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "When Mama Was Moth" - 3. "Sugar Hiccup" - 8. "Multifoiled"

2nd studio album by Cocteau Twins released on 4AD Records. The band is reduced to a duo consisting of the romantic couple of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie playing guitar, bass and drum machine, and with this it has become more evident that they seek out a new broader and more harmony-based sound. The album may be the first to point to their unique sound of dream pop with Guthrie's ambient guitar and Fraser's indistinct vocal harmonies, and especially on "Sugar Hiccups", which is the finest composition here. Musically, they are on their way to find their form but the sound is, however, still very gloomy and somewhat muddy stuck in ethereal wave darkness linked to post-punk, and I don't find it hugely inspiring, and mostly just see it as background noise.

Cocteau Twins "Garlands" (1982)

Garlands [debut]
release date:  Sep. 1, 1982
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,90]
producer: Cocteau Twins, Ivo Watts-Russell
label: 4AD records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlight: 1. "Blood Bitch" - 2. "Wax and Wane" - 7. "Garlands"

Studio album debut by the Scottish band Cocteau Twins on 4AD Records. Here, the band consists of guitarist Robin Guthrie, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, and bassist Will Heggie, and without a real drummer in the band, Guthrie handed all drum programming.
The style is like many post-punk bands of the early 1980s an unidentified search within an experimental shape of sound with traces to art rock and proto-punk and the outcome is a dark meandering gothic rock-like and ethereal wave-style, which really is far from what later became the band's trademark of much more positive dream pop. The style is not fra from what you could end up with when thinking of a combo of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. There's a certain similarity with the sound of Robert Smiths' swirling guitar-sound of the early '80s, and although, Fraser has a unique singing style, there are obvious bonds to the alto vocal of Siouxsie Sioux.

I don't think, I ever managed to play the album from start to finish back then, as I came across the album in the late '80s. I always ended up feeling the music had been caught in some time bubble or stylistic trench and the tracks kept repeating themselves without much progression, but there are qualities in the soundscape, which makes it an original blend. It's not an album of traditional harmonic  melodies but more of experimental nature where the overall sensation matters more than the single tracks.
Not really recommended as a first encounter with the band.