Cocteau Twins - Treasure

Original UK 4AD vinyl

24-bit 96kHz FLAC

“By 1983, the Cocteau Twins had lost their original bass player, Will Heggie, after two well-received albums that put them at the forefront of bands loved by the Peel-listening hordes. These grey masses had already voted them onto his influential Festive Fifty list, but they had far more to give. While ghosting their services to 4AD's This Mortal Coil project, they were to meet their new third member, Simon Raymonde, and with this, their third album, went from fey alternative heroes to full-on purveyors of dreamlike, Victoriana-soaked, splendour.

The fact remains that despite a whole host of post-punk wannabes adopting the flange 'n' drum machine tactics of the Twins, no-one has ever come remotely close to emulating their sound. They are, possibly, the perfect example of a band who inhabit their own hermetically-sealed universe. Fraser's voice to resort to cliche, can only be described as unearthly. The swoops, ululations and delicate, whimsical, nursery rhyme-aliteration were coaxed out of her famously painful shyness by bathing them in the new wave Phil Spectorism's of the trio's production style of reverb, drenched in delay...in a cathedral. Like Spector, the Cocteaus never knew the meaning of restraint when it came to processing a sound. But on Treasure, the style, which could prove a little too muddy, repetitive and overlayed on previous albums, here benefits from better digital equipment and Raymonde's production skills. Witness the way that the opener (and ode to 4AD label boss, Ivo Watts-Russell), Ivo, builds from folky lullaby to something that probably set Kevin Shields on his merry way.

Of course a little obfustication always adds to the mystique. Reams have been written by fans about the meaning of Fraser's lyrics. Yet, in the end, as with the single word song titles, you know that words are chosen for their resonance, not their meanings. At the beginning of Otterley does she really sing , "I'm a yum yum"? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. The childlike sing-song element, mixed with Fraser's astounding range, makes for a deceptively emotional mixture, evoking nostalgia, sadness, and vertigo.

To modern ears the drum machine's relentless boom can seem a little too rigorous, yet Guthrie's guitar - in part a successor to Vini Reilly's excercises in ambient picking, covering all bases from lacy filigree to roaring Glenn Branca-style sheets of noise - always keeps the ears aurally massaged. Quite simply, Treasure was where the Cocteau Twins first got it 100 percent right.”

- BBC review by Chris Jones

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band formed in 1979 by Robin Guthrie (guitar and keyboards) and Will Heggie (bass) from Grangemouth. After recruiting the extraordinarily talented vocalist Liz Fraser (also from Grangemouth) they eventually signed to the Beggars Banquet offshoot label 4AD and released their debut album Garlands in 1982, quickly becoming key members of the 1980's UK Post-punk indie scene with a sound variously described as “gothic”, “ethereal” and “dream pop.” As the above review recounts, Cocteau Twins were one of the bands championed at that time by the legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel (I was an impressionable 17 yr. old in 1984 and have faint memories of first hearing songs from Treasure on Peel’s week day evening show).

Treasure was the first album recorded with multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde (Will Heggie having quit the previous year) and his contribution helped define Cocteau Twins’ signature sound during their period of greatest success in the mid-to-late '80s. The album is widely regarded as their strongest and was a significant staging post in their crossover from being indie favourites to achieving more mainstream success.

Treasure’s healthy sales and critical acclaim are not without irony as some of the band’s members were less than flattering about it. Raymonde felt that the record was hurried and unfinished, while Robin Guthrie (in an article for Select magazine in 1990) went so far as to describe it as an “abortion” and was disdainful of its “…arty-farty pre-Raphaelite” leanings. He remastered Treasure (along with the rest of Cocteau Twins’ 4AD catalogue) in 2003. The album is however presented here in its original form, from a clean UK vinyl pressing.