Cocteau Twins
Lullabies

LA RECENSIONE

In the early Eighties, many bands contributed to the rise of the newborn dark wave movement (not only musical but also literal and generally cultural).

The 4AD label, an independent label that produced the best gothic productions ever (Bauhaus, Cindytalk, Dead Can Dance, among the most famous), released an EP by a virtually unknown band, the Cocteau Twins, support for the Birthday Party of the early Nick Cave. The band, which took its name from a song by fellow Simple Minds, consisted of a guitarist/composer, Robin Guthrie, a bassist, Will Heggie, and a singer, Elizabeth Fraser. The three presented themselves to the public with an anguishing work of a brief duration of a quarter of an hour, composed of just three songs: "Feathers-Oar-Blades," "Alas Dies Laughing" and "It's All But An Ark Lark", the latter containing the verse that gives the name to the entire work, "Lullabies".

Side A of the 7" opens with a standard post-punk style, "Feathers-Oar-Blades", and closes with the terrifying tale of Alas, who dies laughing, punctuated by a vibrating bass and a synthetic drum that sets an almost indefinite rhythm. The irritating voice of the singer repeats obsessively the few verses of which the song is composed.
"It's All But An Ark Lark" comprises the entire B side of the disc. A piece of just over eight minutes, complex, in perfect "Garlands" style, the album that will follow "Lullabies" in 1982; a nursery rhyme, a dark, incomprehensible lullaby, with Fraser's voice overlapping itself amid endless reverberations.

This first EP was to be followed by the release of the first single from "Garlands", titled "Wax And Wane" and accompanied by a B-Side that few (and fortunately I am among those few) managed to enjoy in all its dark beauty: "Speak No Evil". The 4AD, for unknown reasons, decided to release only the album on the market, without a launch single, and consequently, that piece remained in the archives of the record company and was later published as a bonus track on the first CD version of the album and then by fans on various bootlegs.