No Filler Music Podcast - Ethereal Wave: Cocteau Twins "Head Over Heels"

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

We listen to the ethereal, surreal, and unmistakable proto shoegaze that only Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser could create together with a deep dive into Cocteau Twins' 1983 record Head Over Heels. Tracklist Cocteau Twins - Glass Candle Grenades Cocteau Twins - Five Ten Fiftyfold Cocteau Twins - In Our Angelhood Cocteau Twins - In The Gold Dust Rush Cocteau Twins - Musette And Drums Cocteau Twins - Sugar Hiccup This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Newtork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, I'm Weird Al Yankovic, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. I can talk about my perception of Lizzie's Lovets and not being able to make them out, because I know that for a great deal of stuff I've seen it written it. down and it's like a miracle. Quite simple words sometimes, but I think my perception is that she's been so insecure over the years

that she's not wanted to like let people know what she's singing for fear of being judged, for fear of being laughed at or whatever. So she's taking simple words and twisted them around and made them sound in the way she does.

And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that filled the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin. With me as always, it's my brother Travis. And today we are talking about, and today we are diving into Cocteau Twins' second studio album, Head Over Heels from 1983. So, Kew, we did an episode on their 1990 record Heavinar in Las Vegas back in 20, 22 the year that we did nothing but 90s stuff jumped into a bunch of all rock and shoe gaze bands from the 90s

yeah and we joke but honestly I think we could just do an entire podcast on just that music right right I agree but um but yeah I my exposure to to cocteau twins is mostly their 90s stuff so I also just recently got into their 1994 record milk and kisses, which just had its like 30-year anniversary, like remaster vinyl that just came out. So yeah, I'm familiar with 1990s Cocktoe Twins. What kind of blows my mind is how early this was in the 80s. I don't know. Like I did.

83, yeah. 83. and this is just one of those examples where I'm always learning about music. Never stop learning. And it's history. Yeah. And like, yeah, this album kind of blew me away, dude. And it's heavy.

A lot of times it is heavy. And what's cool is I didn't really think too much about this being a genre, but of course it is. this album is Ethereal Wave Well I mean that's dude that that that's Elizabeth Fraser in a nutshell Right right Like ethereal right

Ethereal and that's why I I thought that that clip that I That I brought for the intro was interesting That was Robin Gutthrey So he's basically saying that the reason that she Like her lyrics are hard to decipher sometimes Because she's purposely Shrouting them

Because she's self-conscious about her lyrics. I mean, that's kind of how he, yeah, how he put it. Interesting. Which is interesting. I mean, it's funny because that's, that's like part of, you know, the appeal of cocteau twins is that they're, you know, it's like they're like an alien. She's like an alien from another planet, you know, like the way she talks, sings stuff. Yeah, ethereal. Um, all right, yeah, or maybe, maybe ethereal is better at, you know, like an angel. I say an alien. Let's go with angel. There we go. Right. And, And yeah, this album is kind of considered the archetype of ethereal wave music. So I, of course, you know, rabbit whole time, I kind of dove into like what ethereal wave is.

So the defining characteristic of the style is the use of effects-laden guitar soundscapes. Robin Guthrie? Yeah. That is his style, like, to a T. Even to this day, like, as his solo works, that's what he, you know, sound-laden, or effects-laden soundscapes. Yeah. Well, what's interesting about, I mean, that's what's interesting about that is that my bloody Valentine hadn't even really defined their sound yet.

Right, dude. That's what I'm saying. So, like, this is, this is like a stepping stone to, like, what we think about a shoegaze, right? Right. And that's, okay, here's the main thing that I've learned. in listening to this album. So I think same with you beforehand. I was listening to more of their, you know,

there's stuff from the 90s, which has definitely, I guess, mellowed out would be like, I feel like it's more in line with the dream pop aspect. And here we go again, right? But like, their 90s sound, I think you think more of like the dream pop soundscape. But this early stuff is way more heavy and like distorted.

And yeah. So we need. need to, like, I need to start thinking more about how, like, important Cocktoe Twins was. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, for, for, for, for Shugays. Yeah, because when you, you know, when you think about Shugays, it's really like the late 80s when, when the term starts to pop up and stuff like this. So like, and this is 1983. Yeah.

And we haven't even really gotten into it, man, because we haven't even listened to the tunes. Get ready, man. This is such a cool album. One of my favorite things to do here is like go back far enough to hear like what were the, how did we get to shoegaze kind of thing? Right. Yeah. So that's, and you know, this band is always considered like, you know, one of the.

They're always in the top five. Yeah. And then, you know, like we said, they kind of sway, you know, lean more towards dream pop. But, I mean, they could. guitar effect lead in soundscapes. I mean, that is crucial for shoegaze. You know what I mean? All those guitar pedals and stuff.

Yeah. And it goes on to say primarily based on minor key tonality. Frequently post-punk-oriented bass lines. Restrained tempo and high register female vocals. Often closely intertwined with romantic aesthetics and pre-Raphael. E. Now, that was another rabbit hole that I went down. And we'll get into that later because what the heck is pre-Raphaelite?

That's just some word. Chad GBT made up. No, I didn't know. I didn't get that from chat GPT. Okay. It's mentioned in the Ethereum Wave wiki page. All right, so let's just dive right into the first track that I'm going to pick. Let's just dive into the sound row.

All right. So we're going to play track two off the record. This song is called 5-10-50-fold. Yeah, this is really interesting. You know, like it's just different. You know, over 40 years later, it's still like interesting and different. You know what I mean? Yeah, something about the way that her vocals are captured.

Yeah. It feels very like cavernous, which is funny because when I see, when I look at this album cover, I see like a cave. Yeah. I don't know if that's what that is. But, yeah, I just feel like I'm in like a expansive cave deep underground, you know, and I'm like turning the corner and I'm hearing this stuff. Well, so Ned Raggett or Riggett of the Guardian.

Ned Ryerson? That just happened recently, Q. Groundhogs. Oh, yeah. He wrote that Fraser's singing. was more direct in the mix than it had been on the band's first album. You know, I haven't really given their first album a listen. Me neither.

A proper one, which is Garland, which came out in, I believe, 82, I think. And Q, although her lyrics were still often understandable, she began to shift away from conventional vocabulary towards enigmatic emotional sound, which maybe is what Robin was saying. Yeah, her voice became just as, much an instrument. Yeah. So like,

speaking of her voice, that's, you know, it's her, not, not to just like completely ignore the bass player, but it's, you know,

well, actually, what's funny about this particular record is that Robin was the bass player as well. So apparently, yeah, he did all the instruments.

He did everything. He wrote all the music, yeah. That is something. Yeah, it was just them too back then, Tref. Okay,

wow. So I was just, well, there you go, I was about to say, her voice, voice plus all of that reverb and all the effects and stuff like that that he put on the guitar and I guess the bass and everything like that's that's what makes cocteau twins you know

that's what makes them the band that they are that's what I'm trying to say yeah yeah no but I I read I thought this was interesting Guthrie says we'd had no previous inclination to make music prior to the Cocktoe Twins being formed. So it was a new thing for us. I don't think we were directly influenced by anybody. So when they met, they hadn't even really thought about making music, and then it just kind of happened. Like neither of them had any inclination to make music prior to that band forming.

So this was their first thing for both of them. They were really young when they started. I think he had mentioned, he was like, I think he was 19 and she was 17 when they first started making music together. That's young, man. Yeah, I mean, that's interesting because, you know, in terms of him claiming that they weren't influenced by anybody. You know, her vocals have like hallmarks of like 80s vocals, vocalist, right? Right. And they've, Susie and the band, she's been around since like the late 70s.

So, yeah, I could definitely see that. But, well, yeah, let me just get. the name of the lead singer. I've always just thought Susie too, Q. It is, dude. Susan Janet Ballion. Well, there we go, Susan. Known professionally as Susie Sue.

Susie Sue, yeah. So, I mean, that's the, you know, and they, you know, they had been around for a few years at this point. I wonder if they ever toured together. That feels like that would have been. I'm sure they did. That would have been a good, a good match up there. Well, so since I honestly, I honestly.

my guess is you'd probably you've probably listened to more of their their later albums than I have what is how does this sound compared to to their later works I feel like there was a lot going on on that track and yeah she's screaming too in a way yeah not not you know for the most part she's kind of yelling right and like their later stuff like in and having her less Vegas and then definitely milk and kisses. Like it's a little bit more pop if you can say just

if you could just use the word pop, right? I mean like more straightforward pop type stuff. Dream pop, I should say. There we go. Yeah. Yeah, they were just getting a little bit more melodic and more structured. Maybe that's what I'm trying

to say. It's like this record feels I don't know. It just felt kind of noisy. Yeah. Yeah. Get ready for more of that, Jeff. Okay. So, all right, we're going to jump down to track four. And, so this is in our angelhood, which has been described as both post-punk and proto-shoe gaze in its sound. Protoshoogaystrap, here we go. All right. All right. Yeah, this is in our angelhood. Yeah, you definitely hear it. Post-punk for sure. Yeah, and it's very, you could tell it came out in the 80s cue that's what I was trying to say

like it's got you know but not that's not an insult I'm just saying like right right right right yeah like you know this is this is definitely a song that has all the hallmarks of the of the 80s like new there's some new wave stuff in there like yeah post-punk stuff man that's I didn't realize

that Robin did every every instrument on this record it's really cool I wonder when the bass player joined he joined not that long after okay I think for sunburst and snowbline which was a little EP

that came out in the same year I believe he was on that one So this is just like There you know This is just two Two people That wanted to make some music together And so Robin's like I guess I'll play the bass

And I'll figure out a drum machine and stuff So we can get some proper proper tunes here Right And which is cool because 80s is about the time when you were able to do that Yeah You know because you had electronic drum

sampling and all that stuff I think that's kind of what I'm yeah what I mean when I say like you can tell it was made in the 80s because like that the drum the drum machine right right has a sound like has a distinct you know characteristics to it and so like that there's only it does only however many different drum sounds that are on a drum machine yeah yeah exactly

but that that that contributes to the to the sound you know but yeah that was compared to the first song that we played, like much more of a straightforward melody and pop song. Yeah. Right. And then, yeah, all that reverb, man.

Like, that's kind of what Robin is the love for. It's like, he just, he has this sound that he gets out of, of his guitar that is heavenly cue. Dude, and he was, I mean, early, he was probably in his early 20s when this came out.

Well, what have I done with my life? I just am saying, dude. I know. Well, here's another quote from that regette fella who wrote for The Guardian. He said, Frazier's voice became just as much an instrument as those played by her musicians, including Guthrie's multi-layered and heavily reverberated guitars. He also remarked, in our angelhood probably fits the bill best, and it's a track that would have sounded out of place on Susie and the Banshees kaleidoscope.

So I'm wondering if he's saying, kind of like I was saying earlier, like, there's, like, there's some pretty obvious comparisons you could make to Susie and the banshees with like the vocal quality and stuff. But what's like making them stand out is just how like instrumental her vocals are and how, you know, reverb, drenched like gut the reason guitars are, you know what I mean? Right. So that's interesting because like that, that tells me that, yeah, this, this group was,

was getting compared to Susie, you know? Because it's right there, dude. Like her vocals sounded a lot like Susie back then at least. Yeah, so actually I'm reading something here that's pretty interesting, dude, about her vocals. So Robin says here,

Liz likes to hear her vocals a certain way through the foldback when we're playing live. So we have everything going through an ADT and a Delta Lab digital delay. Obviously, they were are effects on the vocals out front as well, but those vary from gig to gig because different PA companies have different racks of effects, which is why we try to keep the foldback sound consistent. In the studio, I normally record Liz's vocals completely dry, only adding effects

at the mixing stage. That way you can go back to the beginning and start again if you want to change something. So she likes the way her vocals sound up on stage, maybe the way that it sounds back on the like the monitors that are facing them and then echoing out into the crowd. So it kind of sounds like he's trying to capture that on record. That's just kind of what I read that, which I think is interesting. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.

All right. Well, let's see what else we got here. Here we go. Let's jump down to track six. I'm ready. It's another doozy, dude. This one's called In the Gold Dust Rush. Great track, man.

no clue what the hell she's saying but that's i mean to me that's part of the charm of cocteau twins man it's just yeah i think so yeah but here's what i like about that first of all the the haircuts were something else yeah something else dude you just pulled up like a like a magazine so just for anyone who's interested their their website is actually really cool i love when when bands especially bands that have been around forever actually have like clippings yeah press coverage and stuff yeah yeah yeah dude for every single every single years that's amazing yeah yeah and you yeah and you yeah and you click on a link and it a lot of them are just yeah look at this dude photocopies no that's awesome from yeah anyways first of all that's

just this is a podcaster's dream here I know dude that's why I know that's funny because I did all the like quote unquote research for this episode yeah literally half an hour before we started and I I just all thanks to that website. All thanks to their website. But yeah, dude, the hair is, Robin's hair is insanity. It's even worse than, uh, what's his name from the Cure Smith. Robert Smith or Robert Smith.

Yeah. I mean, it looks like those birds, you know, with like the fluffy little puff, you know, tough birds of, where they're courting for their mates doing like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you're a bird enthusiast out there, you probably know what I'm talking about. But anyway, like what I like about that track, and I feel like maybe this is part of like the dynamic

between Robin and Elizabeth is like, she's again, like being very forward and like almost screaming with the vocals, right? But his guitar sound is so soft and like, you know, kind of more in the background of the song. So like her vocals, because his instrument's, his instrumentation, like his guitars are so soft, it makes her vocals even more impactful, I feel like.

It just feels like you're getting sort of like slapped in the face with her vocals, which sounds like I'm insulting about it. That's a compliment, you know what I mean? The way that her vocals are like mixed in the song, they're so like in your face up front, you know what I mean? Yeah, but also shrouded behind those effects that he adds to it. Yeah. You take away her vocals and like, what a cool guitar.

track, melody, like guitar tone, like his tone, the melody and all that stuff, just great. And the baseline, like it mentioned in, you know, the description of ethereal wave, it's very post-punk-oriented baselines. But yeah, it's interesting that they're like, we never even thought about making music until we just bumped into each other or whatever. And we weren't influenced by anything. It's like they had to been influenced by someone. Right.

But yeah, this article from 83, I don't know what. publication is, but... Cocktails. That's funny. Cocktails is the name of the article. Yeah, it says here, I thought this is a good way to put it. It says, they don't seem to have any inkling of the calculation or organization that everybody is telling you that you absolutely must have to produce a record these days.

Yeah, yeah. All I can gather is that the music sort of wells out of them from a source untarnished by any of the fakery and tinsel that afflicts the charts in massive doses. That's why we're still talking about them, right? 40 years later. I think what's interesting about someone saying that in 83 is that this sound felt like it came out of nowhere in 83. They were defining a new sound. Untarnished by the fakery and tinsel that afflicts the charts.

This doesn't sound like the radio-friendly 80s sound. you know from the early 80s so I think that's cool that this was something different yeah and this is only 83 which so I mean they're they're trailblazers cute true dude and yeah get rid this am I about to be trail blazed yes Trev this okay this is the last song for the episode last song on the album my favorite track dude you got to love you got to love a banger for the last track this is beyond a banger man we're doing two clips we're doing two clips here's what we talk about man you got a get to the last track.

I got to listen to every track or you're going to miss out. Travis, you're not ready for this, okay? I'm not. I mean, I'm sitting down. All right, all right,

here we go. So this is mute, wait, I don't even know what to say this, Muset, mute and drums. You know, we're recording early in the morning queue,

so words aren't coming to the forefront right now. But that's, maybe that's the point, dude, maybe that's the point. And I was going to say, maybe you're just left speechless because of what you just heard.

You can't describe it, you know? Right. Yeah, his guitar playing is kind of, you know, he does a lot of, like, kind of sliding. Yes. You know what I say today, but like, yeah, he still does that with his, and a lot of his solo stuff too. But that's, and that's part of that, like, you know, experimenting with the guitar that, like, goes on to probably, you know, turn into the glide guitar of Kevin Shields, you know what I mean? Right.

This is probably like sort of like the beginning of that. What can I get? What sound can I get out of this guitar? You know what I mean? Yeah. All right, man. So we're just going to, I'm going to fade it back in and we're just going to play the rest of the song. Best is yet to come.

Let's put it this way. This is how you end a record. Okay? Here we go. Just the driving, like, overpoweringness of the way they, in that track with that, just whaling guitar effects and man, just gives you gusleys, man.

Let me read a little bit farther down in this article, Travis. This kind of wraps it up real nice, man, the way like this music just kind of get you, especially on this record. It says their records, and particularly their last LP, head over heels, and the accompanying EP

Sunburst and Snowblind, are great washes of swirling sound with the vocal calling darkly through dense fogs of chorused guitar and booming rhythm, garnished with chiming melodies and a sense of drama that leaves me breathless. A sense of drama. I like that. You know, this is why we leave it to the writers out there to form sentences.

You got to leave it to the pre-Raphaelites. Yeah, did we ever figure out what that was? Did you say what that was supposed to mean? Yeah. Pre-Raphaelite. Yeah, it's, I mean, if you're calling someone a pre-Raphaelite in modern times, let me pull off, catch you. So this is what ChatGBT says, okay.

In modern times. You would likely be referring to their aesthetic preferences, artistic sensibilities, or perhaps their personality traits, Trev. Pre-Raphaelites, it was like a movement in art. Okay. specifically where um yeah they were they were drawn to like renaissance this is 1800s and yeah it was like a yeah they they didn't like the way raphael and michael angelo painted uh landscapes and the you know the human figure or whatever the way they pose and stuff yeah so this was kind of a

movement away from that. And also like the way that they, it was kind of like a whole, like a social movement too. These were the hipsters of that time. Okay. So how does that apply to the 80s and cocktoe twins? Like they're saying that.

So this, that was, that was specifically in describing ethereal wave. In the, the aesthetic of it. Okay, okay. Yeah. All right.

That's fair enough. Because like, yeah. When you look at some of the album art and stuff like that and maybe like the font choice of. Very goth. Yeah, you can see that. And like, like Renaissance goth, not like black males painted goth. I think they even kind of dress like that too. Right.

A little bit. Like, dude, everyone on the 4 AD label back then. Got it. You know, Susie. Shit, whoever else was on 480. They were all on 480, I feel like. Yeah. All right, man, so that's head over heels.

That's my picks. Worth it to listen to all the way through, obviously. Sugar Hickup is another great song. Apparently there weren't any, like, singles, as in, like, you know, songs that they promoted for the album. So I would say Sugar Huckup is a sign that's more, I guess, radio-friendly. Okay. Maybe we can fade out with that one just for fun. All right.

But yeah, definitely fantastic record all the way through. obviously gives it a really good context of, yeah, proto shoegaze, post-punk proto-shoegaze, ethereal wave, this is it, man. Yeah, it's there. Yeah, it's already there. And yeah, you can definitely see how Kevin Shields and definitely. The influence, yeah, the influence for sure is there. Yeah.

And I, I mean, that's all, besides her. amazing vocals and lyrics, like the sound, that's Robin Guthrie, you know? Oh, yeah. That's the proto-shoe-gauge sound, I feel like comes a lot from Guthrie and his effect pedals on that guitar and the way he plays it. Definitely. Well, okay, so so far this year, here we've covered Dinosaur Jr. And we've covered Cocktoe Twins.

So what do we do next? I'm thinking. Did we do a nice 180, if you will? I like 180s. And we talk about deaf tones. I've kind of been teasing that a little bit. Let's do it. And that would be an interesting, some whiplash here, you know, I think,

coming from the heavenly ethereal Elizabeth Fraser, right, and Robin Guthrie. So, okay, so I think I talked about this last month on the heavenly. on the last episode that I was trying to I was kind of torn between two different albums of deaf tones but I have landed on one of their most popular records

around the fur came on 1997 13 years later from this record no 14 years later and grunge has already happened right so like shoegaze

was defined and really came into its own late 80s, right? Grunch happened right around the corner, and then Devton's, which kind of falls in like the new metal camp, you know what I mean, of metal and like alt rock and stuff like that. So it should be interesting, Q. And finally crank up the volume a little bit

in terms of the distortion. So, I think this is one cool thing about doing just one deep dive. month is because I think we're going to, yeah, we're going to end up kind of bouncing around a little bit more than what we, we were doing when we were, you know, cranking out an episode every week. Yeah. So yeah, hey, but in between, in between this week and in between this episode and that one, we'll have another what you heard to kind of to mix it up as well.

Yeah, to cleanse the palate before we're going on the deaf tones. Because with our, what you heard, it's always, you know, pretty good mix of genres and decades and stuff. So for sure. Cool. So you can find us on Instagram. If you want to reach out to us, just search for No Fielder podcast. Send us your tunes.

What have you been listening to lately? What kind of bands are you into? Could be a brand new song. Could be a 40-year-old song. if we like a song that you send us we might play it as the outro to our what you heard episode for the month so again find us on Instagram no filler podcast you can also find us on the Pantheon podcast network if you want to listen to more great music centered podcasts it's pantheonpodcast.com thank you thanks for bringing the tunes anytime brother got to go back and listen to

to listen to more of that 80s cocktoe twins, man. For sure, man. Yeah. All right, we're going to fade out with sugar hiccup from head over heels. And yeah, that's going to do it for us this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. My name's Quentin. My name is Travis.

You all take care.