Cocteau Twins - Lullabies To Violaine: Singles And Extended Plays 1982-1996

Every artist signed to a label at some point gets reminiscent and start retreading the past, whether they are long dead or they still keep on treading (and sometimes "basking in the shadow of yesterday's triumph"). There are different ways of reclaiming the past. You can release a best-of compliation, which can either be dictated by single releases or even by the group itself. You can re-release the albums, remaster them and even throw in some treats for both hard-core fans and the upcoming ones. Then you can really go hard-core and release your entire back catalogue. There are some modifications but that's a good general way of looking at it.

In the Cocteau Twins case, nearly a decade after they called it quits, they seem to do all the above. After their personally selected retrospective compliation, Stars and Topsoil, and re-releasing the 4AD albums remastered by Robin Guthrie, the next step to revisit the singles and EPs... not just the 10 from 4AD but the other 6 from Fontana/Mercury/Capitol. The end result is Lullabies to Violaine.

As an upcoming fan of the Cocteau Twins, this release is an excellent crash course in the history of the Cocteau Twins in terms of hearing the evolution of their sound and how they released it commercially. Spending nearly four hours, you do get to hear significant chunks of the Cocteau Twins history. You can hear their beginnings where they are finding their place in the realm of UK independent music, paved by similar contemporaries Siouxise and the Banshees. You can hear their "oddball" EP "Peppermint Pig", produced by Alan Rankine where the Cocteau Twins gets their groove on (not normally done, certainly afterward). Then you can hear how they took their distinct atmospheric and richly-layered sound further starting with "Sunburst and Snowblind" and onto the second disc with "Love's Easy Tears." Then it was a matter of truly perfecting it with "Iceblink Luck."

The next two covers their final years when they were no longer with 4AD and they were accused of rehashing familiar sounds. Of course this also when they ventured into different realms: covering snow tunes ("Snow"), stripping down their sound to bare essentials ("Twinlights") and diluting the density but maintaining the dreamy vibe ("Otherness"). At this point, you hear the engine slowing down but it is still willing to take you places for one last time. For many people, these last two discs are optional extra.

Overall, this is the best way to know what the Cocteau Twins were about and you can hear their story, more or less, from beginning to end. Plus this limited edition is absolutely gorgeous in terms of packaging and not only in terms of its look. All in all, it's a four-hour sleep with dreams and the ability to stay awake. And if nothing else, it's absolutely worth it for "Pink Orange Red" alone.