Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd Visit ‘The Moon and the Melodies’

These days, “ambient music” is almost a household term. In 1986, the phrase wasn’t even a decade old. British musician Brian Eno named and helped formalize and popularize the style with his work in the late 1970s. On some of that work, including Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (1980), Eno collaborated with American avant-garde pianist and composer Harold Budd.

Certainly, the three members of the Scottish indie group Cocteau Twins were aware of Eno and his work. Though the circumstances remain muddy, their pairing with Budd made sense. Cocteau Twins made their name in the UK with their singular, otherworldly sound, which fused Robin Guthrie‘s heavily-treated guitars, Simon Raymonde’s phased-out bass, and a pummeling drum machine with Liz Fraser’s beguilingly melodramatic vocals. What’s more, Fraser sang in a rarely-decipherable mixture of English and patios of her own making. “Shoegaze” was a term that didn’t yet exist, and it never would have if Cocteau Twins hadn’t inadvertently provided the blueprint.

For their 1986 album, Victorialand, though, Cocteau Twins scaled back their sonic icebreaking. Raymonde was working with the This Mortal Coil collective, a sort of house band for the 4AD label, of which Cocteau Twins were a part. Guthrie and Fraser recorded Victorialand as a duo, and the album’s instrumentation consists mainly of Guthrie’s acoustic guitar, albeit still run-through effects.

Raymonde rejoined the fold for the subsequent Harold Budd collaboration. Only on an independent label could such a meeting of minds occur. David Byrne of Talking Heads had made an album with Eno in 1980, but the Budd/Cocteau Twins hookup was unprecedented nonetheless. Budd was 25 years older than the Cocteau Twins’ members and had never worked in pop music.

Given this background, the resulting record, The Moon and the Melodies, while a success, remains something of a disappointment. Budd’s and Cocteau Twins’ styles mesh so well that they almost disappear into each other’s music. This is a case of two complementary EPs: Of the eight songs, half are done in Budd’s ambient style, while half are Cocteau Twins’ ethereal pop. Rather than transcending the sum of their parts and creating something entirely new, the musicians produce what sounds like either a Budd recording with subtle background textures from Guthrie and Raymonde or Budd sitting in on rhythm piano with the Cocteau Twins. Indeed, one song reappears on Budd’s own 1986 LP.  

Neither of these halves is an uninviting proposition, of course. Budd’s glassy, ponderous piano is, like much avant-garde music, simultaneously inviting and chilling, invoking a sailing ship afloat on a beautiful yet ruthless and icy sea. Some of it does have a dated feel, especially when the saxophone from 4AD labelmate Richard Thomas comes into play. Cocteau Twins fans will continue to appreciate the four Fraser-sung compositions. The hiding-in-plain-sight secret to the Cocteau Twins’ appeal was that under the layers of effects and indecipherable vocals were relatively simple, pleasing pop melodies, often consisting of just a couple of well-considered chords.

This approach is evident in the lead track “Sea, Swallow Me”. This song has since become something of a streaming and social media hit, and it is easy to hear why. Starting with a plangent arpeggio from Budd, it quickly bursts into mid-tempo bliss, rising to a caterwauling Fraser chorus. “Eye of Mosaics” and “She Will Destroy You” are no less lush, if a bit less distinctive. After an extended intro of shimmering guitar, “Ooze Out And Away, Onehow” ends The Moon and the Melodies with a minute of euphoria, Fraser’s layered vocals weaving an all-too-fleeting spell. The 2024 remaster, done by Guthrie, seems to de-emphasize the reverb and drum machine a bit, giving the Budd-led pieces more definition but slightly lessening the grandeur of the other tracks.

In a show of magnanimity, The Moon and the Melodies was released under the four musicians’ names rather than the Cocteau Twins brand. Doubtless, this led to new fans and appreciation for Budd, who continued collaborating with Guthrie beyond the Cocteau Twins’ split and up until his death in 2020. It may not be an essential part of either party’s discography, but its existence is enough to make it more than a footnote.