Monday, April 02, 2007

Cocteau Twins - Otherness EP


Known for their mesmerizing blissed out shoegazer-esque rock throughout the 80's and 90's, Cocteau Twins rarely fail to astound me with their brand of seductive music. Although I'm more partial to works like Four Calendar Cafe and Heaven Or Las Vegas, I do enjoy the older material, despite it being less polished and a tad more on the raw side. In previous posts, I have ranted on about the 'dreaded remix syndrome', and perhaps to some degree we have another violation of my pseudo rule here on this EP. My biggest problem is turning a song into something incoherent to a listener, and them no longer actually knowing what they are listening to. To some degree, you will find this EP has transformed these gorgeous songs into ambient 'clickity-clack'. Though you can mostly detect what songs you are listening to the samples they reverberate over and over, you will still at some point question who's material this really is. In this case, however, the tracks aren't actually that bad, being that they aren't completely saturated with the remixer's fingerprints. 'Seekers Who Are Lovers' is a decent remix of the original, infusing more chilled out ambient ode to Seefeel (via Mark Clifford of Seefeel). 'Cherry Coloured Funk' has been stripped right down to the bare bones, and has a single phrase repeated over and over, being perhaps a bit monotonous to some, but for me showcasing the loveliness which is Liz Fraser. Love it or hate it, this EP is here for your enjoyment, or the scourge of puritan Cocteau Twins fans.





Track 1, Feet Like Fins (Remix)

Track 2, Seekers Who Are Lovers (Remix)

Track 3, Violaine (Remix)

Track 4, Cherry Coloured Funk (Remix)





Grab the tracks here! Password-pwemb.blogspot.com





Canadian Fontana Records 1995, 422 852 159-2



Personal rating 3/5

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a great band it is!!! One of my top 3 long time favourites. Surely, it is experimental EP and you will never enjoy it as much as you could when listening Heaven or Las Vegas, Blue Bell Knoll or some of their precious EPs from mid 80s.
No matter what, this trio had been so influential on many other indie bands. Undoubtedly, Cocteau Twins was the beginning of shoegaze ....