Not only can the Cocteau Twins boast of having composed some of the most original albums of the 80s, they also invented one of the the most influential genres of the 90s: dream pop.

The makeup of their songs is almost always the same. First there’s the ethereal warbles of Elizzbeth Fraser, closer to a whisper than to high pitch, and often left to float along suggestive excursions in register. The singing is then immersed in instrumental scores that evoke surreal, dreamlike, magical atmospheres: crystalline chords, soft melodies, languid cadences, symphonic keyboards. The music does not follow a linear path, but rather limits itself to embroidering a brilliant filigree of sounds. The novelty lies precisely in its horizontality, rather than verticality: it stands in contrast with the narrative structure of classic rock with a static, almost contemplative structure.

Their practice is reminiscent of and is certainly the result of psychedelic rock, but the effect is different: instead of "expanding" the mind or embarking on lysergic "journeys", the music is suggestive of impenetrable interior landscapes. If anything, the most obvious genealogical link is with the goth music of the time: the hallucinated existential crisis of Joy Division and the ghostly and pompous visions of Siouxsie. What makes the Cocteau Twins unique is on the one hand the form (a diminished adherence to the traditional song structures) and on the other the content (an infatuation with the magical and spiritual elements of the human experience).

Dream-pop was born with the release of the single Peppermint Pig (4AD,1982). Soon after, the full length Garlands (4AD, 1982) instantly made history. Siouxsee's formula is still perceptible in the urgent and distorted Wax And Wane. Head Over Heels (4AD, 1983) immediately settles into much more personal territory with the hurricanes of syncopation and distortions of Musette And Drums, In The Gold Dust Rush, In Our Angelhood and with the frivolous Sugar Hiccup. The high tragic lament of Five Ten Fifty Fold, the funereal and martial elegy of When Mama Was Moth, the mantra chorus over disco polyrhythms of Tinderbox mark the progressive evolution towards a pan-ethnic and dissonant spirituality.

The Cocteau Twins carried out experiments that were even more daring on their EPs of the period, where the music really tends towards a transcendent chamber lied for soprano and small orchestra (in this case the keyboardist and arranger Robin Guthrie). Hitherto (1983) is another solemn hymn, arranged with a disco rhythm, psychedelic dissonance, vibrant melismas and classical keyboards. Spangle Maker (1983) places a middle eastern chant over a tribal beat. Pearly-dewdrops Drops (1984) is a lullaby rocked by cyclical waves. The progressive rarefaction of harmony culminates in the lysergic dilation and celestial warbles of Pepper-tree (1984). The supernatural arpeggios of the guitar, the suspenseful cadences of the drums and the eerie notes of the keyboards are all mere fresco backgrounds for Fraser's intense close-ups. The first singles will be collected on Pink Opaque.

The bassist and keyboardist Simon Raymonde joined Guthrie and Fraser starting with Treasure (4AD, 1989). Fraser sets her ambitions higher with this album of great stylistic workmanship. The singer seems to have gained a greater awareness of the vocal experimentation of avant-garde artists such as Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson. Infused with medieval myth, the work combines the obsessive, hypnotic cadences of dark punk with a sampling of singing recitals. From the simple oriental dances of Ivo and Beatrix to the complex and dazzling modern dances of Persephone and Cicely, the Cocteaus express themselves with a heterodox grammar of sounds and voices, sinking into Tim Buckley-an (Otterley) and rising in Gregorian lauds (Donimo), lapping the baroque in the most refined architectures (Lorelei) overdubs of ethereal cries, childish tunes, fairy whispers and witch's humming on one of their most torrential discomusics, and (Pandora) blurred reflections of graceful warbles that float gracefully on a jazzrock rhythm.

The tracks released on the two EPs of 1985, Tiny Dynamine and Echoes In A Shallow Bay, namely Aikea-Guinea (a delicate nursery rhyme with solfeggios in crescendo), Plained Tiger (mini-mass for layered echoes at flamenco pace), Pale Clouded White (a circular funeral lament at pow-wow pace) confirm a tendency towards virtuoso and enveloping vocalism set in a fragile electronic casing. Exotic and medieval atmospheres permeate their solemn (and somewhat decadent) litanies. Their dreamy, arcane psychedelia, bearing traces of rock’s high priestess, Nico, crumbles into transcendent hypnosis and stasis.

The group has now reached the peak of their technical means and can indulge in increasingly ambitious orchestrations. Surprisingly Victorialand (4AD, 1986) manages to limit itself to an austere and refined acoustic sound, almost completely eliminating synthesizers, and giving more space to guitars, wind instruments, and voices.

The delicate, elegant madrigal of Throughout The Dark Months (with counterpoint of a child’s nursery rhyme) or the evanescent Whale Tails (in which Fraser's breath-song is refracted by infinite echoes) further slow down the pace of their daydream. Lazy Calm is the most complex piece: a late-night jazz introduction and a typical Fraser lullaby, a song that develops through breezes of whispers and a counterpoint that is made of vortices of warbling and dreamlike cadences of guitar tinkles. In search of an ever more magical and sublime sound, the Cocteau Twins take inspiration from Kate Bush (Oomingmak), oriental mysticism (Feet-like Fins), French chanson (How To Bring A Blush) and religious music (The Thinner The Air).
Played almost entirely without percussion (replaced with arpeggios and guitar tinkles) it is the softest and most ethereal album of their career, bordering on new age. The limit of this music is that it risks becoming simply an accompaniment for Fraser’s vocal exercises (the same can be said of the lyrics, which are practically non-existent). It’s more or less like watching a great skater practicing for the Olympics.

Recorded with Harold Budd, The Moon And The Melodies (4AD, 1986) instead demonstrates the dangers of this music: once the pace is slowed down, and the arrangements are reduced to pure atmosphere, what’s left is a mediocre variant of new age music.

Blue Bell Knoll (4AD, 1988) falls short of redeeming the group's standing, but partially renewed their image thanks to a sound that was more radiant and rhythmic. Blue Bell Knoll is a raga for Middle Eastern wails. Athol Brose dissolves into a hypnotic vertigo. However, the majority of the tracks drown in a cocktail lounge jazz that is in no way elevated by Fraser's blurred babbling. The most abstruse vocalizations reveal at best a stronger influence of German Expressionism and Parisian street chanson (Carolyn's Fingers); of Kate Bush's eccentric high notes; and of Slavic folklore (Itchy Gloubo Blow). These later albums are rather soporific and risk passing simply as background muzak.

The group seemed aware of this, and Heaven or Las Vegas (4AD, 1990) introduces two significant changes: Fraser sings lyrics in plain English (rather than babbling her usual abstract tales), and the sound is structured around a steady rhythm section. The result is more regular songs, with less room for Fraser’s acrobatic vocal flights. At the same time, by abandoning the intellectual masquerades of their recent albums, the Cocteau Twins expose themselves to the harsh reality that their music has little to say: Iceblink Luck, Cherry-Coloured Funk, Fotzepolitic, and Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires would be minor tracks on any Kate Bush record, and other songs verge on the most commercial kind of dance music.
The album deepens the suspicion that, once Fraser’s vocal verve is restrained, the Cocteau Twins' music is essentially modern “muzak”, only slightly more creative than what you’d hear in a supermarket. The fact that it’s sung by a prodigious performer like Fraser, a disciple of Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson, does not inspire enthusiasm, but rather regret.

Four-Calendar Cafe' (Fontana, 1993) strips away what little rhythm the previous album had attempted to inject into the anemic sound of the mature Cocteau Twins. The arrangements are again evanescent as on Victorialand. A few good pop numbers ( Bluebeard, Squeeze-wax, Evangeline) immersed in the usual, increasingly cloying, hypnotic fog, and a few vocal ideas (Oil Of Angels) are not enough to lift the album's fortunes.

The Twilights EP (Capitol), based on the piano, does not inspire optimism for the group's future. The following EP Otherness (Mercury) contains a sequence of ambient metramorphoses (the suggestive Violaine and Seekers Who Are Lovers), suggesting that the band is pursuing ambitions of serious music.

Those experiments culminated with Milk And Kisses (Capitol, 1996), even if the group loses in a comparison with new generations of ambient and trip-hop bands. Between surreal vignettes (Half-Gifts , which is "inspired" by Leonard Cohen's Suzanne) and metaphysical ones (Rilkean Heart), it is Serpent Skirt, an old-fashioned song, that ultimately prevails . The group's strong point remains Fraser's vocals, layered and iterated until they constitute an instrument of enormous emotional force.

If history judges were to judge them solely for their “songs”, little would remain of this trio, but the production technique (the manipulations of the singing, the guitar chords that seem to burst out of the stereo) and the cohesion between singing and instruments have played a pivotal role in bringing the "ethereal" back into fashion.

Fraser remains the real phenomenon of the group. The Cocteau Twins’ compositions stand alongside those of Laurie Anderson as some of the most successful popularizations of avant-garde vocalism. Fraser’s fresh soprano can flow harmoniously and tremble, shifting between the guttural modulations of Indian singers, the high-pitched trills of Japanese vocalists, and a conversational softness. The oneiric quality of her music also makes her one of the great disciples of Tim Buckley: like Buckley, Fraser's singing is shaped by the melismas of spirituals and the “cantillations” of Eastern liturgies, and the Cocteau Twins’ sound draws inspiration, like Buckley, from the free improvisation of psychedelia and jazz.

The Cocteau Twins' multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde stepped to the forefront with his first solo, Blame Someone Else (Bella Union, 1997). The lush arrangements are only part of the picture, as Raymonde veers towards Brit-pop melody (It's A Family Thing, Worship Me). The album's centerpieces are covers, but Raymonde's highly personal style shows promise.

In 2000, Raymonde began collaborating with Anneli Drecker from Bel Canto on the single Song To The Siren/ Morning Glory, credited to the Czars.

Guitarist and keyboardist Robin Guthrie led Violet Indiana (featuring sensual/fatale vocalist Siobhan DeMare`), that released the baroque and melancholy albums Roulette (Bella Union, 2001) and Casino (Bella Union, 2002).

Cocteau Twins' guitarist Robin Guthrie formed Violet Indiana with vocalist Siobhan de Mare. They released Roulette (2001), Casino (2002) and Russian Doll (2004).

Suddenly prolific again, Guthrie launched his solo career with Imperial (2003), ten atmospheric instrumental vignettes, and Continental (2006), a closer revisitation of Cocteau Twins' sound, thanks to more oneiric guitar feedback and a more organic use of electronic sounds.

Sun's Signature, the duo of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and percussionist Damon Reece, debuted with the mediocre five-song EP Sun's Signature (2022), containing a bombastic version of her 2000 single Underwater. Steve Hackett of Genesis plays guitar on a couple of songs, notably Golden Air. But it all sounds terribly obsolete.