Robin Guthrie (guitar) and Will Heggie (bass), both from Grangemouth, Scotland, formed the band in 1980. At a local disco, Nash, they met Elizabeth Fraser, who eventually provided vocals. The band's influences at the time included The Birthday Party, Sex Pistols and Siouxsie & the Banshees. The name ''Cocteau Twins'' itself comes from an early (unreleased) song by Simple Minds. Their debut recording, ''Garlands,'' released by 4AD in 1982, and was an instant success, as was the subsequent ''Lullabies'' EP. (In 2005, Deftones released a version of "Wax and Wane" from ''Garlands,'' becoming one of the few groups to attempt a cover of a Cocteau Twins song.)Though the entire band was praised, Fraser received much attention. Even on their early recordings, her singing was startlingly unique, with little precedent. At times barely decipherable, Frazer seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth music. Ned Raggett writes that "part of her appeal is how she can make hard-to-interpret lyrics so emotionally gripping."http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:wqja7z6jg7or
Mid-80s
Will Heggie left the group after the tour that followed the 1983 release of the band's second EP, ''Peppermint Pig.'' The band's sound on its first three recordings relied entirely on Heggie's rhythmic basslines, Guthrie's minimalistic guitar, and Fraser's voice; Cocteau Twins' next full-length LP, ''Head Over Heels,'' had to rely solely on the latter two. This led to the growth of Cocteau Twins' characteristic sound: heavily effected guitars combined with Fraser's voice, by turns ethereal and earthy. Like its very dissimilar predecessor, ''Head Over Heels'' was well-received by the public and press.In 1983, the band participated in 4AD's This Mortal Coil project (this spawned a cover-version of Tim Buckley's ''Song to the Siren'' performed by Guthrie and Fraser, which became a major hit), and during their work for that, they got to know Simon Raymonde (formerly a member of Drowning Craze), who joined the group later that year as a bass player.With Simon, the band released a series of critically acclaimed albums and EPs exploring their new style. These included ''The Spangle Maker'' (1984), ''Treasure'' (1984), ''Aikea-Guinea'' (1985), ''Tiny Dynamine'' and ''Echoes in a Shallow Bay'' (1985) and ''Love's Easy Tears'' (1986). Raymonde, who was collaborating on the second This Mortal Coil LP, did not participate in the recording of the fourth Cocteau Twins LP, ''Victorialand'' (1986), a predominantly acoustic record which featured only Guthrie and Fraser. He returned to the group for ''The Moon and The Melodies'' (1986), a collaboration with Harold Budd, which was not released under the Cocteau Twins name. In 1985, with a major-label release still years away, 4AD signed an agreement with Relativity Records for distribution of Cocteau Twins in the US and elsewhere. To commemorate the event, the compilation ''The Pink Opaque'' (1985) was released as a way of introducing the new, broader audience to the band's back-catalog.While remaining a 4AD band internationally, Cocteau Twins finally signed a major-label contract with Capitol Records in 1988 for distribution in the US, and released their fifth proper LP, ''Blue Bell Knoll'', in October of that year.
Early 90s
The style the group began exploring with ''Head Over Heels'' reached its peak on ''Heaven or Las Vegas'', released in late 1990. The most commercially successful of their many recordings, the album rose to the top of the charts immediately after its release. However, despite the success of the record and the tours, not everything was well with the band. They parted ways with 4AD following ''Heaven or Las Vegas,''partially because of conflicts with its founder Ivo Watts-Russell, and were close to breaking up over internal problems due in large part to Guthrie's addiction to drugs including alcohol.While on their international tour supporting ''Heaven or Las Vegas'', the group signed a new recording contract with Fontana in the UK and elsewhere, yet retaining their ongoing US relationship with Capitol. 4AD and Capitol released a Box Set in 1991 that compiled the band's EPs from 1982 to 1990, including a bonus disc of rare or previously unreleased material.The band's seventh LP, ''Four-Calendar CafAc'', was released in the fall of 1993. It was a departure from the heavily-processed, complex and layered sounds of ''Blue Bell Knoll'' and ''Heaven or Las Vegas'', featuring crystal-clear, minimalistic arrangements. This, along with audibly comprehensible lyricssomething previously elusive, as Fraser tended to sing in a style that obscured her lyricsled to mixed reviews: some critics would accuse the group of selling out and producing an 'accessible album,' while others would praise the new direction as a worthy successor to ''Heaven or Las Vegas.''The band themselves explained that ''Four-Calendar CafAc'' was simply a response to the turmoil that had engulfed them in the intervening years, with Guthrie entering rehab and quitting alcohol and drugs, and Fraser herself undergoing therapy (the two had been in a long-term relationship, and by this time had a young daughter, Lucy-Belle, born in 1989).
