We’ve never featured Cocteau Twins in our 80s HITS series, many because it’s a feature series meant to highlight non-hits and they actually had a minor hit in 1984. But the other week a Cocteau Twins reissue caught be by surprise. I’m talking about the newly remastered (by Robin Guthrie himself) soundtrack by the group and Harold Budd, reissued by 4AD.
It was originally meant to be a soundtrack for British documentary series, but was instead released on 4AD in 1986 under the names Budd, Fraser, Guthrie, Raymonde. That explains why I’d never heard of it before.
“It’s not he sort of record we would make as Cocteau Twins,” says Guthrie. “It’s more the sort of record Harold would make himself. It was very quick. He came here and we worked in our studio for two or three weeks and he sort of went away, so we finished it.”
Budd is an American composer and both Guthrie and Simon Raymonde went on to work together with him on other scores, most notably the one for Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki. That score was written by Budd and Guthrie. Sadly, Budd passed away in 2020. But now you can once again hear the 8 beautiful tracks from The Moon and the Melodies.
