The best response I have as to why I've selected Elizabeth Fraser as one of those dozen or so Unsung Geniuses to post about can be summarized in one phrase that I read in one British reviewer's review in NME in 1986 regarding her work over a two year span of two LP records and three EPs: "Vocal acrobatics." No singer I have ever heard better represents that phrase than Elizabeth Fraser. She didn't use her voice to merely sing, to rain down on us mere mortals notes and melodies of sheer angelic proportion, but danced, jumped, lept, astonished, performed feats--tricks some would say--that no other human I'd ever heard perform--not even Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or the finest Italian coloratura opera singer. No one. The story goes that Robin Guthrie would lay down his heavily-effected and treated guitar and drum machine tracks and then Elizabeth would come in and try to add her own input through her voice. What I would have done to have been a fly on the wall during those recording sessions.
The problem became when it came time for the band to try to perform their songs live, on stage, in a concert setting: they had to use tapes of many of their songs' tracks and then Elizabeth had to choose which of her multiple tracks to try to replicate (an extraordinarily impossible feat to accomplish). Needless to say, it is in the extraordinary sound production of the band's studio albums that you really get to know and understand the exceptional and extraordinary talents of Miss Elizabeth Fraser. Plus, as my brother and sister-in-law can attest from their own attendance of a Cocteau Twins concert in Soho in 1987. Elizabeth does not have much of a stage presence: she is definitely a nervous shoegazer. (Plus, she had the sniffles. They actually hated the concert.)
My own personal discovery of the band Cocteau Twins goes back to a period of my life in 1984 in which I was collecting new music by going into Schoolkids Records (in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and thumbing through the album bins on an almost daily basis. My method of looking for albums at this time included the use three typical criterion for my piqued my curiosity: 1) album covers/art, 2) publishing labels, and, most importantly, 3) the names of the contributors to an album's production: musicians, guests, engineers, producers, and ancillary people the band might be thanking in their liner notes. For me, the attraction to Cocteau Twins' Treasure was immediate due to its amazing album cover:
As a matter of fact, all of 4AD's album covers during this period were breathtakingly artful--which is why, over the next year, I found myself owner of albums by several other 4AD stable members, including This Mortal Coil, Clan of Xymox, Dif Juz, Colourbox, Cocteau Twins, and even The Pixies. I now look at this fact--that art played such a huge role in my selection of new music--as something quite ironic. The music industry in 1984 was going through a radical transition: the physical size and form of the consumer's music was moving away from the large, bulky and somewhat fragile 13-inch vinyl form that had dominated for the previous 30 years; it was being supplanted by that of the new medium of the compact disc™ or "CD" with its 5 1/2" by 5" jewel case--which is much less conducive to displaying art and information to the naked eye than the 13-inch and 12-inch forms.
Something else Treasure had that won me over into purchasing it, having never heard a note, was the titles in the tracklist. Later I read in an interview with Elizabeth that the song names came from street names the band had encountered while walking around the streets of Amsterdam. But look at these names:
Side One:
1. "Ivo"
2. "Lorelei"
3. "Beatrix"
4. "Persephone"
5. "Pandora"
Side Two:
1. "Amelia"
2. "Aloysius"
3. "Cicely"
4. "Otterley"
5. "Donimo"
I could not wait to get home to hear this tantalizing purchase. The potential energy sitting in that Schoolkids bag on the passenger seat next to me was almost palpable. Little did I suspect that the kinetic reality contained therein would far exceed any suspected potential.
I will never forget hearing the first song, "Amelia," for the first time: those heavily-treated 12-string and electric guitars, the heavily-treated drums, deep rolling bass, and then, as if someone had brought down from another world a duo of two women singing as if in opposition to one another: the first, an angelic almost operatic soprano singing in an undecipherable language that was foreign and totally inaccessible to me (which I only learned today was the lyric, "Who've been wounded, who should wound her, heart on a grasp" and things like "Heart, heart, heart, heart, ba da da da"), while the other sings in a low voice that displays all the affect of a cynical bitch whose lazy, almost disinterested "Ba da da da"'s turn into what sounds like "Somebody call. He never calls." I was stunned (which is the same reaction I got when I first played it for my equally adventurous--and equally-4AD-devoted--brother the first time)! The entire album played out as if I had been taken on a trip down the River Styx, into Hades' Underworld--or Plato's Cave. It was stark and despondent, alien and utterly foreign--this despite Elizabeth's obviously gorgeous singing, Robin Guthrie's lush soundscapes, newcomer Simon Raymonde's hypnotic bass lines, as well as Robin's generous use of major seventh chords (and variations thereof).
For decades I fought against any possibility that there were actual lyrics to Elizabeth's singing. Yes, I could hear words--sometimes foreign or made-up or exaggerated words--but mostly I thought I was hearing the playful explorations of "possible" pronunciations of randomly selected--perhaps even extemporaneously selected--words, syllables, sounds, or phrases--sound combinations that provided particular interest to Elizabeth (and Elizabeth alone) according to some curious and highly-idiosyncratic "radar of personal-intrigue-bordering-on-obsession." (I flat out refuse to believe the generally-accepted lyrics for "Pandora" are as printed.)
I was immediately able to recognize the unique genius of this band's music--of this album--an album which has remained in the Top 10 of my list of All-Time Favorite Albums ever since. (Coincidentally, with this same purchase from which I also brought home another album that has remained in my list of Top 10 Albums of All-Time: David Sylvian's Brilliant Trees.)
While the creative rollercoaster of the Cocteau Twins ran a course parallel to that of Robin and Elizabeth's relationship/marriage, I am of the opinion that Elizabeth vocal talents remained of a very hight quality even into the 21st Century; I am of the opinion, however, that her well of highly-unique and -creative arrangements peaked with Blue Bell Knoll and started to run dry thereafter: the vocals on Heaven and Las Vegas and Four-Calendar Café are gorgeous with wonderfully worming melodies, but the layered arrangements and more clear use of words and meaningful sentences, for me, represented a downturn in the band's uniquity. While there are some wonderful songs and performances on Four-Calendar Café, there is only one song that maintains some kind of foothold into the magical formula that came before, and that is "Know Who You Are at Every Age." But I do not wish to cast aspersions upon a creative output of an astonishingly high level that lasted from August 1984 through 1988, covering four full-length albums and four four-song EPs. Few artists have soared so high.
For a sampler of Elizabeth's extraordinary vocal acrobatics I welcome you to start and study the following songs: "Song of the Siren" from 1984's This Mortal Coil, "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow" from 1986's Victorialand, "Ivo" from 1984's Treasure, "Quisquose" from 1985's Aikea-Guinea, "Pink Orange Red" from 1985's Tiny Dynamine, "Cico Buff" from 1988's Blue Bell Knoll, and/or "Pur" from 1993's Four-Calendar Café.
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